Don’t get me wrong. I’m no luddite. I use plenty of online tools to get and stay organised – Outlook for emails and meetings, Asana for managing and tracking team projects, Dropbox for document sharing and transfers… But as a writer, I love my hard-copy diary and planner. Pen on paper. Tactile. Real. Magic. It wasn’t always this […]
Learn to Write
Free online creative writing courses
Many universities and colleges now offer MOOCs (Massive Online Open Courses) which are fully online courses that allow thousands of students from around the world to enrol, usually at no cost. Some … (more)
Beat Writers’ Block
Writers’ block – and how to break through it
You've been sitting at your desk, staring at a blank page. For three hours. The words won't come, and you're ready to hurl something at the wall and rededicate all your spare hours to laying on … (more)
Writing prompt #22
Today’s writing prompt is from author Elizabeth Berg’s excellent book on writing, Escaping Into The Open (page 61). You are given a box of clothes from someone extremely close to you who died suddenly. Write a scene of your sorting through these clothes.
On admitting you’re a writer
For many years, somewhere in the back of my head, I clung to the idea that to be able to call yourself a writer, you need to be published. That, of course, is nonsense. To be a writer, there is one overarching criterion. You need to write. And keep on writing. That’s it. Just write. A few years […]
Elizabeth Gilbert’s TED talk – artist stereotypes and an alternative approach to creativity
I want to share this TED talk from writer Elizabeth Gilbert. It was filmed in 2009, in between what she terms the ‘freakish’ success of her novel Eat, Pray, Love, and the release of her next book. She put the talk together whilst grappling with the knowledge that although she may have another forty years of […]
Eleanor Catton at Perth Writers’ Festival
Note: this article was written on 22 February, 2014 I attended writer Eleanor Catton’s PWF author talk today. I find it diabolical that she is 28 years old and has already published two great novels to such acclaim. She recently won the 2013 Man Booker Prize for The Luminaries, her second novel and the book she is […]
What is free writing?
Whenever I sit down to write, I generally start with writing practice. Even when I’m in the middle of a story and itching to get straight back into it, I’ll still spend five minutes free writing (because there are some benefits I’ll mention in a moment). What is free writing? It’s an opportunity to flex the wild, unbridled, […]
