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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. Â 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…
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It’s one day to NaNoWriMo people.
Thinking of doing NaNoWriMo this year? Did you only just realise that it was one week away? Don't worry, I have something that can help you plan for it.
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Diverse and need a writing group?
There is a writing group starting up for diverse people in Perth who want to write and take part in NaNoWriMo - if you want in, then read on.
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Sulari Gentill’s A Few Right Thinking Men
I grew up on a literary diet that had a healthy portion of crime fiction in it and these days if I see one crime novel that sparks my interest then the entire process of hunting down the whole series one by one begins. This is also one reason why I am so glad that the first book in Robert Jordan’s Wheel of Time series never fully grabbed me in the same way – I would still be trying to get through all of them decades later.
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The Paper House by Anna Spargo-Ryan
My heart fell out on a spring morning… ~ The Paper House by Anna Spargo-Ryan Grief is an ever present theme in Australian literature. We are a nation of writers fascinated by either lack or loss. That, in itself, intrigues me. And it intrigues me that much like Anna’s opening line here, that we never run out of ways to twist and use language to be able to describe so well the nuances of the nature of that grief. And language and the use of it is what strikes me so immediately with The Paper House. This is Anna’s first book, one she has worked on for ages, one that…
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Reader question: How much do I plan when I write?
[aesop_image imgwidth=”100%” img=”http://marisa.com.au/wp-content/uploads/2016/04/6776877812_176f899533_b.jpg” credit=”Plan B by Sebastien Wiertz via Flickr” alt=”Plan B by Sebastien Wiertz via Flickr” align=”center” lightbox=”on” captionposition=”center”] A couple of my friends are reading my novel draft as I write it. And this then leads to some very interesting questions. Am I a good novel writer? I don’t know – that’s a question for you to answer once you read what I write. But that isn’t the question I am getting. The question I am getting is usually along the lines of “Was X planned?” The general answer is “No.” I think this question arises from the fact that many people are taught, either in school or university,…
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HIM update for April 15
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 goals this week: 5,000 Actual word count this week: 3334 Total word count so far: 11,338 Total word count goal at this point: 60,000 NOTE: HALFWAY TO NOVELLA AND 1/5TH TO NOVEL! 🙂 How long did it take me? 3 hours What have I…
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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.
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HIM update for February 19
What did I write about this past week? Why no one often wants to get out of bed, the long lived nature of chicken dynasties and elderly neighbours who know more pop cultural references than you do. None of which was actually previously planned out by the way, these are just all the random cool things that turn up in my writing as I write.
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HIM update for February 12
Quick explainer: For those of you who don’t know yet, I am writing my second book HIM and have staggered my word count goals this time. If you are on the mailing list 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. Word count goals this week: 5,000 Actual word count this week: 1128 Total word count so far: 3135 Total word count goal at this point: 15,000 How long did it take me? 2.5 hours
