Being an author is only partly about being a writer. Lots of people who write well, don’t necessarily write well across-the-board. Someone proficient in government report writing may have style-guide perfect grammar but might struggle to write a compelling science fiction novel. An advertising copywriter may have the gift of expression but could struggle to […]
Why time is like sex
Time is like sex. We all think everyone else has more of it and that it’s somehow better quality than the sex we have. Well, just like sex, they’re not. Ultimately, everyone has the same number of hours in the day to work with and everyone has conflicting uses for that time. Some people are fantastic time-managers […]
Find & Replace: a writer’s best friend
First published in HeartsTalk Magazine (Romance Writers of Australia) in 2010 A few years back, on the eve of a competition and when I was super new to this whole writing gig, I went through my MS line-by-line manually finding and adjusting every single instance of a double-space after a full stop. Thousands of them. I vowed then to find […]
Genre knockers (popular/commercial fiction)
The question was asked by someone new on a commercial writer’s loop “what is ‘literary fiction’?” and the best answer (by far) was “What the rest of us support.” Literary fiction is the top point of the fiction pyramid where fewer authors dwell amongst fewer publishers and even fewer sales (comparably). But it is somewhat […]
To comp or not to comp
Writing competitions can be enormously useful if you approach them with balance and detachment and don’t give them too much importance in the greater scheme of your writing. They are just another tool at your disposal. A means to an end. They aren’t the world. You’re going to do well from time to time and […]