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Sharing Sunday – Olive Branch
So I’ve decided that Sunday is now going to be called Sharing Sunday and I’m going to make a practiced effort to share bits and pieces of my writing with you. That and Sunday’s generally tend to be the days where I schedule everything around Body Attack and So You Think You Can Dance, but it’s now moved to Thursdays (really annoyed about that this week. I was looking forward to it!) Any way without further chatter from me here is Olive Branch. My first toddler steps into creative non-fiction aka literary fiction. I hope you like it. It’s also a bit long, so bear with it. Olive Branch…
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Writing Coaching
So, I had this huge post prepared for yesterday but I was wiped after work and the little work out I did. I was falling asleep on the couch so I didn’t get a chance to really write down what I wanted. Oh well. It doesn’t matter. I’m taking Rach and Tara’s b-school offer. Check. My next issue was trying to find something that I wanted to really accomplish. Entrepreneurship sounds ah-maze-ing and not because some people are earning the big bucks, but because I can work to my own hours and be my own boss. I can find freedom in that very thought and it’s one that is so…
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Editing Etiquette
I’m not sure what everyone thinks about the etiquette that’s involved with editing, and while I’m not an expert, I do know that there is something that they did touch on, very briefly, in my classes, is that you need to have a good balance when it comes to editing and the marks and all that jazz. Why? Well you’re are supplying possible changes, not trying to overwrite it to make it your own. I’m finding this excessively hard now that I’m in the process of editing a full length manuscript. My friend tells me that they like all those adverbs and every book I’ve read, every workshop I’ve done…
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Bird by Bird by Anne Lamott
So I finished the book and I’m sitting here wondering: Why the fuck did it take me so long to get around to reading it? (sorry about the colourful language. I try not to use it too much out of my fiction work and when I’m really angry or excited). My answer is: Mandi you had uni and FTCM and work and OB and your novel. That’s a lot of ands. I finished it and now I’m staring at my book, which fell apart when I set out to read it while it was hot outside, and I keep seeing the gold mine that this book is. There are so…
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Writing Degrees and What I’ve Learned About Them
My love affair with writing began when I discovered just how exciting reading was. Thanks to John Marsden and his Tomorrow When the War Began series I enjoyed immersing myself in a world that wasn’t my own. It was also around the time that I was coming out of the worst bullying year in my schooling life (at the time, it got much worse once high school hit) and it was my escape from all of that. Escape from the pain of people teasing me and making me hurt. So when I picked up a pen and let it run rampant on the lined pad of my dolphin notebook I…
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Keeping it all locked inside or not…
I have to admit something. I used to be afraid of change. I used to be afraid of stepping out of my comfort zone, or letting my heart rate jump up to an uncomfortable flutter in my chest. It wasn’t until I made the decision I worked on for a year and half (I had to wear my tough as paxamadi Greek father) before I went the hell with this and booked the flight that would ultimately change my life. I applied to a writing course. The one I just finished. I met up with the head of the course and was accepted on the spot for a course I…
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Exciting Edits
So this is the first copy of my draft. It’s taken me a year to write the it from start to finish (the last 53,000 was done for NaNoWriMo this year). This is a little earlier than I would have liked but I’m on a little deadline that involves throwing my very rough draft and putting it in the hands of my lecturers for a chance to win a manuscript appraisal, which would be invaluable feedback, good or bad. So here it is. It’s 323 pages long and it’s huge. I went with M to go and pick up our t-shirts for the Color Run tomorrow and made the stop…
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NaNoWriMo and finishing my first draft
It’s been three days since I reached 50k. I bet my last record by a day and learned a heck of a lot from it. One plot holes make me stress like it’s nobodies business. Second, editing as you go, really does suck. How do people do it? The other HUGE thing that happened was that I FINALLY finished the first draft of my manuscript. (Technically it’s like my second for most of my novel, but shhh!) I went to visit the ever lovely Peta in Bendigo (I love going to see her and her family, I feel like I’m apart of it all!) and I pretty much used it…