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Talking to Characters
So today is the start of a new week, one where I’m committing myself to getting back on top of my blog schedule. I was feeling burnt out because I was trying to do too much, again. I really need someone to come and clobber me over the head to tell me to stop doing that. I keep doing it. Damn. Today I had schedule time to do some rewriting of my novel before finishing up some B-School fun sheets but my creativity seemed to take a hold of the day and not let up. I’m totally okay with letting it do this. It’s been a while since I’ve been able…
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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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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…