There comes a time in the writing of every novel when I realise I need a timeline. This is when I get tired of flicking from page to page trying to figure out how old a character was in 1992, or how old they are when their mother dies. Making a time line is not [...]
Archive for the ‘Writing’ Category
Time Lines
Posted in Writing on March 23, 2010 | 7 Comments »
Early Beginnings
Posted in Writing on March 8, 2010 | 1 Comment »
How important are the early stories you write? I just excavated a box of notepads containing all sorts of scribbles and notes from stories I wrote between the ages of 14 and 18. Unfortunately, most of them were destroyed by possums and by the dead rat who snuggled his way in to die between the [...]
Odd old reads
Posted in Writing on February 7, 2010 | Leave a Comment »
My latest odd old read is The Cobweb, by William Gibson. Not that one! This book was written in 1954 and I bought it at our local tip, a place of much wonder and joy. I picked it up because of the author’s name, thinking perhaps it was an early book by that other William [...]
Drafts
Posted in Writing on September 22, 2009 | 5 Comments »
When you have a couple of computers on the go, keeping track of the latest draft can be tricky. Have you ever had that moment when, an hour into a final read-through, you think, “Hey, I’m sure I changed that last time,” and you realise you’ve been working on the penultimate draft? I had this [...]
Reactions
Posted in Writing on June 14, 2009 | 2 Comments »
My coping mechanism for a very slow internet is to have a book by my computer and read while I wait. At the moment it’s “Clarice Bean Spells Trouble”, by Lauren Child, a cute and funny kids’ book. I didn’t expect to be made to think while reading, but that’s what’s happened. Clarice Bean is [...]
Brainstorming
Posted in Writing on March 16, 2009 | 4 Comments »
I have five stories to write. A scary historical one. A cultural one. One based on a song. One based on an ancient goddess. A Christmas one. Five very different stories. I’ve done a lot of research, taken a lot of notes, and two of the stories have fallen into place. The other three just [...]
