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6 Lessons from a year of writing crime fiction
I spent a year writing crime fiction and here is what I learnt.
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Gin & Tonic Update #3
The third update on the writing of crime fiction novel Gin & Tonic
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11 things I am tracking in 2019 for my freelancing and why
Marisa Wikramanayake discusses what she tracks as a freelancer so that she can be a better journalist and editor.
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Gin & Tonic update #2: I was so wrong! AKA #maricantmath
We interrupt this regular broadcast to tell you two things: 1. We are late. Apologies. I am still trying to get myself back into a routine and things keep happening to send me right out of it. More on that in a couple of weeks. 2. OMG I WAS SO WRONG! Let me explain. I intend to update you on what is happening with G & T and if you go to my Patreon and subscribe for $1 per month you can read G & T from start to wherever I am at by the time you catch up to it/the finish. So I have these posts on the blog…
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An update on Gin & Tonic
For those of you who are new and who may not be aware, I am writing a crime novel. This should not really surprise anyone. I love reading crime fiction. But I started writing this story last year. And I was lucky enough to smash out some huge chunks of words during my KSP and Varuna writing fellowship stays. I am hoping the book ends up being this madcap dash through Colombo tropical city humidity and heat with two teenage girls puzzling their way through crimes and the cops chasing behind them, missing jewellery, murder, mayhem and secret bars and annoying aunties and all. A few months ago I started…
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All my worries as a WOC writer
This is a list of worries that Marlee Jane Ward, award winning writer, thought I should post about. In the hope that it would help. So here we go. I worry about a lot of things as a writer. I worry about a lot of things anyway. And after a week of funding and job cuts for both the arts and journalism, I am more worried. Here’s what I worry about along with some ranting – perhaps you can relate. They may be unfounded or not – the point is I worry about all this stuff. TW: possible triggering with mentions of patriarchy, racism and bias. Let me know if…
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Why my brain has no space and why I have no time
So here is the news. I am going to slow down considerably on writing HIM. I can hear you: “You were supposed to finish by mid-April!” Yes, I know. The funny thing about books is that they don’t generally behave the way you would like them to. Ditto for life. So why am I decelerating on HIM at the moment? Lots of reasons but mostly: I want to enter the Vogel Awards and the Richell Prize. The deadline for Vogels is 31 May. The deadline for Richell is 1 June. I want to enter Sedition into the Vogels but that means editing Sedition before 31 May which at the moment…
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HIM update for April 29
Quick explainer: I am writing my second book HIM and have staggered my word count goals this time. If you sign up to the mailing list or become a blog subscriber you get to read the first draft. If you don’t you just get this update on whether I hit my goals or not each week. Subscribers scroll down for your link, mailing list, you will get an email in your inbox. Word count this week: 726 Total word count so far: 12,064 Total word count goal at this point: 20,000 for novella, 60,000 for novel How long did it take me? 2 hours What have I learnt? That this is very much an exploratory draft in…
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HIM update for March 25
And this week I was distracted by a sexy boyfriend but also by the TAG Hungerford awards but I managed a few words...
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HIM update for Feb 26 and Mar 4 – sorry for the delay!
Horrible first draft" is not intended to be self depreciating at all - sometimes people I am writing with or speaking to about the ideas in the book jump in and try to tell me not to say that but the reason I do so is to remind myself that this is the stage where I get the story down in words. It isn't the stage where the words have to be awesome - they don't have to be. They just need to tell the story. So it is the horrible first draft now - it will be rewritten and edited and prettified later.
