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What Workshopping Has Done to Me
Dreamers, I’ve fallen in love. I’m back at Uni and studying my little butt off (which is why I’m so quiet on here) and I fell in love with workshopping all over again. You see back in my Flinders days I was pretty cool with everyone telling me how good my writing was. It was a nice little ego boost, then when I was at Melbourne Polytechnic (formerly known as NMIT) I had my arse handed to me on a silver platter. I was too cocky. I took it to heart. I let it get the better of me. My piece was shredded before my eyes and I felt like…
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First Drafts Frustrations
I have a love hate relationship with writing first drafts of anything. I have written about it before over here and it’s a topic that I will never get tired of talking about because every first draft is so different from the last. I’ve had first drafts where I struggled to connect with the female character and found the male character easier to write, which for me, is completely left of field and hard to comprehend. I got past that and rounded out that character. I even came back to it and fell in love more, but there are some stories that drive me up the wall. During April I tackled…
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Fuelling your Writing Temple
When I think of food, I always think: Yum, get in my belly! I’m Greek, so if you can’t find a common language barrier, you just feed people. It’s an unofficial rule or something of the like, or at least that’s what I like to think anyway. I grew up around food, the smells of pastisio, moussaka, freshly made bread and kokkinisto (red sauce) meat is something I associated with life. Meals that were made with extra love have always been a highlight in my day. Since moving out and learning about food I decided to nix a lot of things out of my diet (some because it makes me…
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#5minsofwriting
A juicy and loving Writing Practice is a marathon of love. It’s not something that happens overnight and I know that through years and years of love and labour, I can get to my computer and sit down for a short amount of time and just pump out the words, but there are days where I find the idea of sitting down and writing something akin to sitting in the dentist chair (it’s been almost 3 years since my last trip…shhh) and it’s perfectly normal to have these days. Even I struggle with days where the thought of putting my fingers onto the keypad is excruciating and I would…
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Writing through the struggles: Camp NaNoWrimo Wrap Up
Camp NaNoWriMo ran for all of April and for those that follow me they know that I’m an avid NaNoWriMo fan. I have done it for the last 6 years and have 6 drafts of novels that I’ve got raided around the place (maybe I have more, I should count) and when I found out about Camp NaNoWriMo and actually remembered when it happened, I decided that I’d tackle it. Two years ago at the start of April I was excited, I was rewriting my novel. The one that I’m looking at that’s a completed draft (world building none withstanding) and I was getting a jump on it after I…
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How to Beat Down Criticism
I knew that the internet was full of people who were mean, but I never realised how bad it was until it was pointed at me. I never believed that criticism was even a thing that mattered until I wrote an article for the Huffington Post (it’s the one below this page) and I was excited. Ecstatic really! It all happened within a week and everyone that I’d spoken to told me that was basically unheard of. I was so thrilled. I told all of my friends, most of my family and shared it in one of my very awesome and supportive Facebook groups. I went on with what I…
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Pay for Editing. Your Work Will Thank You
Why should you get your piece of writing edited by someone who’s knows what they’re doing? Better yet why should you pay for editing? What makes it so special? Editing is such a precarious object. It’s always so subjective, but why do you really need editing? Why not just outsource it to a friend who will give you feedback for nothing versus forking out money to get an editor to look at it? Why bother to pay for editing? Look at it this way: would you self diagnose your child with a heart problem just by their outward behaviour? Would you trust your partner/husband/boyfriend to fix the oven when it…
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Rock Your Goals Podcast
I had the absolute pleasure of being on my gorgeous friend, Sarah Jensen of Sarahjensen.com.au, Rock Your Goals Podcast where we got all juicy and raw with writing, editing, writing practice and just how my dad’s death has changed my life and my business. We also talked about: How health can change and shape your creativity. What to do when you just can’t write and it’s writing time. How a great editor can help shape your writing and make it better. What to do when your Inner Editor comes out to play. Great tips on how to get a Writing Practice started. How changing…
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Featured on Elizabeth Kelsey Bradley’s Blog
I can’t believe that I completely forgot to even mention this on here, I know I mentioned it on my Facebook but here is the amazing interview I did over on Elizabeth’s website! It was called Savouring Simplicity and she’s just revamped it and moved servers (heck yeah, I can comment on it now!) and moved over to use her own name. This amazing writer is someone I can’t wait to see what happens with her! Check out my interview on her site over here.
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Your Creative Life Podcast
I was lucky to be asked, by one of my beautiful friends, Vanessa Carnevale, to be a one of her special guests on her podcast: Your Creative Life. It was my first podcast and not my last one, that’s for sure! We chatted about the importance of a writing practice, how it brings meditation and mindfullness into your life and a few other handy tips on writing. It was a fun chat. It’s available on iTunes and can be found over here. Keep an eye out, after being on all of these amazing podcasts, I’m starting to work on my own, its going to be amazing!