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Gin & Tonic Update #3
The third update on the writing of crime fiction novel Gin & Tonic
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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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Upcoming events in June 2018 AKA where you can find me this month
I am going to be rather tired this month. But that’s a good thing because you get to see me at several events during June. Check out the events page. Continuum Panels The very first one kicks off in two days time: So You Want To Be A Book Reviewer? This is an awesome panel at the Continuum Speculative Fiction Convention at the Jasper Hotel in Melbourne running from Friday 8 June to Monday 11 June. I am on it with Figgy and Elizabeth Fitzgerald and it starts at 5 pm on Friday. We will discuss how book reviewing changes depending on how you do it, what you need to…
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I hit 10,000 words! Days 5, 6 & 7 of the Inaugural 2018 KSP - Varuna Foundation Fellowship
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 of the Inaugural 2018 KSP - Varuna Foundation Fellowship
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 3: So many emotions Day 3 of the Inaugural 2018 KSP - Varuna Foundation Fellowship
Day 3 and I am just grateful. I didn’t get to sleep until five am because I was just so thrilled that I had met my goal. You get a high after you write and type everything in. But I did sleep in bursts till about noon. I would wake up, do some work related things, sleep a bit, write a bit and so on. I woke up at noon and went over to the main house and the office to meet Shannon who is the director here at KSP Writers Centre. I gave her some things from Sri Lanka and she offered to do a pharmacy run for me.…
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Day 2: A cat is here! Day 2 of the KSP - Varuna Foundation Fellowship
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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I won the inaugural KSP – Varuna Foundation Fellowship Here is what that means
What is a writing foundation fellowship? In A Room of One’s Own Virginia Woolf argues and advocates for women to have a room of their own to write in where they are free from all the other duties and responsibilities one has to undertake in the business of living or running a house or working and so on. Male writers in the past have often benefitted from having a spouse who could keep everything going while they had the free time and space to write. Writing fellowships vary in what is involved or offered but this idea of having time to write free from other concerns underpins the KSP-Varuna Foundation Fellowship…
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My top 10 posts in 2016 It is very interesting to see what you like to read
It is a fact of life that whenever you try to plan your life you end up dropping something at some point – life intervenes and you have to. You have to prioritise. In 2016 it was this blog. But it is interesting to see what my top 10 posts were for 2016 in terms of how many people viewed/read them. I got views despite not being as active as I wanted to be on the blog. I am hoping to change that this year. It is also interesting to see what people read and to try and unpick why that was the case. PS: All headings are clickable and…
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3 amazing Australian authors I read in 2016 and absolutely loved Because I like to document moments that make me happy... like books...
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…
