A Writer's Life
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How I Tackled the NYC Midnight Flash Fiction Challenge
Happy Monday everyone! As I mentioned last week, I wanted to do a post on how I approached Challenge 1 of the NYC Midnight Flash Fiction Challenge. With only 48 hours to put together a 1000 word short story and three specific constraints (genre, location and object) on what I created, anyone who has done this challenge can assure you… it’s harder than it looks. For a start, 1000 words? Not a lot of words to work with. Creating relatable characters and having them undergo a story/journey in that number is very challenging. Sometimes it’s easier to hide away in the bulk of words we write, rather than pare them…
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Flooded Anthology – Get Aboard!
Helllooo everybody and happy Monday! I feel like I can say that because I’ve just finished cleaning the house (yuck!) and I have this blog post ready to go on time. I’m excited about putting this post up, because I’m really excited about getting involved in the ‘Flooded’ project. ‘Flooded: A Creative Anthology of Brain Injuries’ is the pet project of Victoria Griffin, a writer and editor at Blue Pen Editing Services, who suffered a concussion while playing softball in early 2016. Now, I’m fairly sure most people have heard of concussion. You get them from hard hits to the head and in tv shows, they always shine a light…
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A Post about Networking
Happy Wednesday everyone! There have been a few things going on in the past week or so that have really made me think about networking and building a blog readership, so that’s what I’m focused on today. To start with, I’ve recently started to get a bit more traffic on this blog, so a big HELLO! Hello to everyone who is reading this post or any other, and has made the time to leave a comment or like a post. If you’re a new blogger, you’ll understand just how empowering, encouraging and downright exciting this is; if you’re a more seasoned blogger, you may have forgotten, but let me remind…
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The Battle with the Churn
Happy Monday to all you Americans out there! (Australians, I sincerely apologise for bringing up traumatic Monday memories for you). We’ve had a busy weekend, but this blog post has been on my mind since last week, and I’m keen to share it with you. I want to talk about the ‘Battle with the Churn’. I’m not sure how familiar a term this is to Americans (or even to Australians…?) but it’s a fairly common one in the Australian Army: basically it refers to self-generating work and/or stress. With that loose definition in mind, I’m sure the idea of churning is quite a familiar one. It’s what happens when you’ve…
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Getting Back into the Grooooove
Well everyone, it’s a Monday again. Happy Monday! I’m sure most people are rolling their eyes at that statement, but sometimes we just have to get excited about stuff and today I’m excited about life, so I’m wishing you all a happy Monday. I decided late last week that enough was enough: it was time to start writing every day again. Before leaving Australia, I was fighting to finish our moving admin and finalise all of my uni assignments for submission. The result of that and moving to Oklahoma meant that for quite some time, I only worked sporadically on my novel. Any excuse would do. I couldn’t decide how…
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The Great Writing vs Editing Juggle
Happy Hump Day everyone! I hope everyone in the US enjoyed their long weekend and Fourth of July celebrations. I decided not to post anything on Monday, since it was a holiday and we were spending too much time relaxing (also studying. Sigh). It was our first American Fourth of July and if that’s not exciting, I don’t know what is. We spent about $200 on fireworks and burnt ourselves firing them; we ate freedom cake and pecan pie; there was a slip’n’slide and Flip Cup (an American game that we were introduced to), and I got to cuddle a really cute puppy. It was a day that ticked all…
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Are Wednesdays for Writing?
Hey everyone! I know I promised that I would be publishing poetry on Wednesdays, but that idea has recently hit a small snag… Turns out that many magazines and competitions categorise posting your work on a blog as ‘being published’ and since a frequent condition of submission or competition entry is that previously published work isn’t allowed, I’m in a bit of a bind! I won’t be posting much poetry, or short stories up here for a while as a result, since I’m trying to get more involved in submitting my work to magazines and entering competitions. Instead, today I’d like to talk about making yourself write. Wednesdays are for writing. The alliteration is…
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The Price of Success
Happy Monday everyone! Mondays are going to be thought pieces/blogs or short stories from now on to kick the week off. As I’m sure you’ve already figured out, Wednesdays are poetry days and Fridays will see American Adventure updates. Today’s thought piece is about what it takes to succeed. I will bow my head in shame as I say it, but the other day I did a google search: ‘should I stop blogging?’ I imagine I’m not the only person who’s asked the all-knowing depths of the internet whether or not to surrender to the depressing realities of trying to build a sustainable, interesting and worthwhile blog that people want…
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How We Keep on Truckin’
How We Keep On Truckin’ Happy American Wednesday from Oklahoma! We were ready to nap at 9 am today. It’s our second full day and the past two nights have seen some interesting variations in sleeping patterns, as well as bed accoutrements that have included no pillows and not-quite-right pillows and a too-soft mattress. Earlier today, I was consumed with self-introspection, weariness weighing on me like a stone. The effort required to move, to think, was like dragging myself through wet concrete. It seemed impossible to write and the temptation to lie around and do nothing was overwhelming me. In that instance, it’s hard to know what the cause is…
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Battling with Writer’s Doubt
Happy Sunday everybody! Hope everyone has had a great weekend: ours involved a lot of travel and farewells with family and friends before we set sail (figuratively!) for Oklahoma. I’ve recently started following and reading the content on Positive Writer, which is a great source for anyone who wants to get information and encouragement on writing. They’re hosting (and I’m participating in) a writing contest called Writers Crushing Doubt, so I’m going to chat about some of my experiences with ‘Writer’s Doubt’. I firmly believe that any writer who tells you that they’ve never suffered from doubt – about their ideas, their writing style, their creative process, their schedule, their…
