-
Gin & Tonic Update #3
The third update on the writing of crime fiction novel Gin & Tonic
-
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…
-
I hit 10,000 words!
I suppose I gave it away in the title but oh my God! 10,000 words! Here’s what happened on each day. Day 5 was the Friday. Nothing got done on Friday. I was really exhausted. My sleeping patterns were out of whack and I was trying to fix my ear issue. I thought I could go out to meet my union colleagues and friends for drinks and come back and write. The drinks part happened and was fun but the writing part did not happen. So I had zero words for Friday. I had about four to five thousand words at this point to write in order to hit 10,000…
-
Day 4: Freedom to write, freedom for writers
Day 4 already. Well, nothing was going to happen on Day 1 given how tired and jetlagged I was. Today, most of the day was pretty boring. I had not slept well the night before. So the day was full of waking, sleeping, doing things I needed to do like eat and so on. I thought about the book a lot. And then I did my makeup, changed, called an Uber and went to see my friend Vicki Laurie interview Peter Greste at the WA State Library. So three things happened today on Day 4: Peter Greste pleasantly surprised me. I was very happy about that. Thank you Peter Greste.…
-
Day 2: A cat is here!
Day 2 and I woke up joyful today. Joyful because it was such a wonderful thought that I could write and everyone was going to be mindful of that. That no one would disturb me, no one would interrupt me, no one would think to themselves “She is free – let’s get a hold of her.” Also annoyance because my article was overdue and I needed to get it done so I knuckled down to do that while battling my ear going strange again. I made a mental note to see my doctor as soon as I get back to Melbourne. I figured out the A/C and I had a…
-
3 amazing Australian authors I read in 2016 and absolutely loved
I tend to stumble upon my books (matters not if it is work by Sri Lankan or Australian authors) and I started young. We have a bookcase in our house that spans the length of the downstairs study. It is mostly filled with modern day thrillers and what I refer to as airport novels – Jeffery Archer, Frederick Forsythe, Connelly, Koontz, Deaver. John Grisham. Those books. A smaller bookcase housed the encyclopedia set and the treasure trove of Agatha Christie novels. In the bookshelf for us kids, there were Enid Blytons and Carolyn Keenes, topped up by regular birthday and Christmas gifts. I read the classics – the cornerstone foundation of…
-
Maudiegirl and the von Bloss Kitchen by Carl Muller
The first author I read this year is not an Australian female writer but a Sri Lankan male one. It was Carl Muller and his book Maudiegirl and the von Bloss Kitchen. I thought it would be prudent to try and read more POC authors this year as well as try to understand a bit more about my own English language literary background and read more Sri Lankan authors. Carl Muller can come across as crude. His stories about the Burghers (the mixed race descendants of European colonisers and native Sri Lankans) feature life in the raw as it was in what seems to be early 2oth century life in…
-
The best Australian books that 7 Australian writers loved in 2016
I wanted to write about some of the best books by other Australian writers that I had read and been blown away by during 2016. And then I thought – why not ask them who they read in 2016 that was amazing AND an Australian author? So that then I could have a list of books to then go read myself in 2017? So I did. I yelled out into the Twittersphere: Australian #writers: what was the best book by an Australian that you read this year? I want to write a blog post & will link back to you. — Marisa Wikramanayake (@mwikramanayake) December 24, 2016 And true enough, over…
-
Watch “Emily Paull in conversation with Liz Byrski” on YouTube
A week or so ago, I filmed this video for Westbooks of their Q & A session with author Liz Byrski. Find out about her latest book The Woman Next Door and her writing routine as she gets interviewed by Emily Paull.
-
July 2016 Writing Calendar
I decided to put this calendar for the month of June together on a whim. And then people loved it. So this is the monster list of everything even remotely writerly and literary that is going on in Perth and WA in the month of July 2016 from today onwards. So a few quick answers to questions: Will this list always be on this site? MEAA WA is keen to cross-post/host/something along those lines. This will also be cross-posted at Emily Paull‘s site. And possibly on DWOA once we tweak a few things. Can you compile a list for Victoria and Melbourne? Not at this point – no time to spare.…
