Storytime

To the blog. Yep, two years ago this week I decided to put fingers to keyboard and send out into the ether my thoughts. And apparently I'm still thinking. Why did I begin? A friend of mine, Tiggy Johnson  , then editor of Page Seventeen magazine,   author, poet, writer, mother, wife, crafter...had been blogging for a while and I was interested in the process.  My first thought was how on earth could you write something new, hopefully something interesting, each week.... and something that somehow (and sometimes very tenuous) linked to the craft of writing. Surprisingly it has been easy (well up to now it has been). Because life is so varied, I find there are so many opportunities that can be written about. And since I am always struggling along with my writing, I find it good to put it out there. The rejections, the successes, the times I want to hit my head against a wall because nothing is working out like I thought it would. At times it ...

On the weekend I went and saw Agatha Christie's play Mousetrap  . I grew up with Christie - probably said this before but my mum was a crime reader. Christie, Doyle, Marsh, Upfield ....the golden era of crime writers. And they are what I call 'cosies' - you knew what to expect. Always knew that Hercule Poirot, Miss Marple, or Tommy and Tuppence would save the day. Put the real villain behind bars. Live happily ever after. So when the play came to Australia I was there. I'm not going to talk about the play as such- I mean it's a whodunnit and the audience are told not to reveal who actually did it. But.... Mousetrap began as a short radio play called Three Blind Mice. It then became a play that Christie thought would last for perhaps eight months. Sixty years later and it is still going. It is the longest running play in modern times. Over 24, 500 performances.  Yep over twenty thousand performances. Through contractual negotiations there is to b...

I'm preparing for a writing workshop that I'm running in a week. It's looking at how to begin, how to generate ideas and get started. And of course one of the first questions asked is 'where do ideas come from...' The answer, as most writers know, is everywhere. From conversations over heard, from comments, from images and news reports, from wondering 'what if?' And since it's my daughter's birthday next week...I will have to say that family, especially my children have inspired so many stories, poetry, non-fiction and even novels. Which I don't think they are really aware of...not yet anyway. Children are a font of inspiration, mainly because they have no editor. They say whatever they want, to whomever they want. They ask questions....they make statements. They inspire in so many ways. Sometimes it's their innocence, their pure view of the world...sometimes it's the questions that they dare ask that an adult never would. S...

I'm trying to capture some of the moments from our recent holiday.  Writing a travel piece is a new experience for me. Finding the right voice, what exactly I would like to share and make it interesting without sounding like a fourth grade school project... what i did on my holidays.... (crooked horizon and all) I've done some research. It seems that the most vital piece of advice about travel writing, apart from 'get your facts correct' is 'avoid cliches.' No use of the words 'beautiful' or 'amazing.' Two of my pet peeves anyway- because what is 'beautiful' to me can be meaningless to so many. Okay so no use of 'azure skies' or 'smorgasbord of...' to describe the food. No purple prose. No 'bustling markets' or 'kindred spirits.' Hmmm.....so I must use description and observations with a smattering of facts. Keep a narrative thread through out the piece. Try to maintain a light, bright,...