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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…
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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.…
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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…
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Five years!
It’s been five years since I started freelancing. Or at least it was on Saturday. Five years. Wow. A lot can happen in five years. I started freelancing because I knew it would take awhile to get my foot in the door and work in-house and also because I wasn’t entirely sure I wanted to. Freelancing is great – it allows me to work with a lot of different people, it allows me to meet different people and it allows me to mentor some and be mentored by others. It allows me to try new things and to keep constantly learning. And I am reminded that it also means that…
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Tips for being a science journalist
A brief summary of my seminar (part of the UWA Science Communication Seminar series) on 6 August 2010.
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Day 1: Explosions, books & how to keep kids keen
[<a href=”//storify.com/571811/day-1-explosions-books-and-how-to-keep-kids-keen” target=”_blank”>View the story “Day 1: Explosions, books & how to keep kids keen” on Storify</a>]
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Curation of @realscientists starts tonight!
Colour me terrified. @realscientists is the brainchild of a few people, namely @scienceupulie and @DrYobbo both scientists in their own right and also science communicators. Which means they blog and tweet and podcast about science all the time. @realscientists is a rotation curation Twitter account which means one scientist takes over each week and tweets about his/her work, whatever field of science it may be. The curators are introduced and farewelled each weekend on the Real Scientists blog and their tweets are usually storifyed for posterity as well. Last week it was sharks with @WhySharksMatter taking over for the week. From next Sunday it will be a virologist who likes to…
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Best places in Fremantle to write
A woman must have money and a room of her own if she is to write fiction. – Virginia Woolf, ‘A Room of One’s Own’ And if you need a change of scenery, then here are the best places in Fremantle in which to write. They are in no particular order and I am only listing the great things about them – find the one that is your particular nesting ground. As for criteria – warmth, wi-fi, food and drink and a general sense of people being around is the bare minimum for me as well as minimal distraction. Dome cafe, South Terrace/Cafe Strip, Fremantle What is awesome about it?…
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How to write a book: Part 1: Introduction
Three years is a long time. Three years ago, I was asked to run an online group on how to write books. The posts ended up here. A lot has changed in three years. It’s time to re-issue the posts with updated information. So for the next few weeks, every Wednesday (or for some of you, Tuesday night) there will be a post to do with writing a book, answering a specific question in your email and posted on this blog. What’s your part in this? Well, you are welcome to sit back and read the posts but you can also participate. You don’t need to be writing a book,…
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Crimescene WA & Real Scientists
I am really rather excited about the second week of October this year. Why? Well, the week starts on the 6th of October. And at midnight sharp on the 6th of October, I take over the @realscientists account on Twitter. The @realscientists account is curated/run each week by a scientist, science writer, science artist, science communicator, science illustrator… you get the idea. The aim of the project is to get more information about science, all sorts of science, out to the public. And I am part excited, part terrified, part nervous about taking over tweeting about what I do to do with science for a whole week. If you have…
