Social Media For Writers
A couple of weeks ago, I asked you to send me your questions about social media. I received quite a few, too many to answer all in one post, so I chose the questions that seemed to have the broadest appeal. As you’ll see, my answers are lengthy as I’ve...
How I Got An Agent
A few weeks ago, Lauren Keegan invited me to be part of her monthly blog series, How I Got An Agent. You might remember Lauren from this amazingly honest and moving post she wrote for Writers in the Attic last year. She wrote about rejection, something all...
How to Write a Book Part #6: How to Write a Book (Again)
My guest in the attic today is one of the most generous writers around, always happy to share her experience and knowledge—her blog posts, articles and podcasts certainly helped me as a fledgling writer. She’s also one of the busiest people in Australia, and...
How to Write a Book Part #5: Seeking Feedback
It’s no news to any writer that seeking feedback on your work is one of the hardest things about this writing business. Yet, if we want to be published, at some stage we must put our words, stories and characters out there to be scrutinised by others. It’s as...
How to Write a Book #4: Learning the Craft
In a previous post for this series, I wrote about how hard it was to wear ‘L’ plates again after deciding to become a writer in my early forties. Today, I’m going to talk about how I actually learnt the craft of writing. At the time I started writing,...
How to Write a Book #3: A Glimpse Into My Editing Process
Editing your own writing is hard, so today I thought I’d give you a glimpse into my editing process using an example from my novel. Most of my novel has undergone extensive editing—only a handful of scenes came to me fully formed. I’ve...
How To Write a Book #2: Take Your Writing Seriously
Continuing with my series on ‘How to Write a Book’, this week I thought I’d write on another aspect I found particularly difficult to put into practice: Taking my writing seriously. I’m never comfortable giving advice—I prefer to write about my...
HOW TO WRITE A BOOK #1: Give Yourself Permission to be a Learner
I’m often asked questions about my book. Things like: What’s it about? (Family, music, dreams) How long did it take to write? (Six years) What inspired it? (Many things—life, things I’m interested in, family stories) What made you want to write a book? (I wanted...
Replenishing the Empty Well
Today I felt like journaling. It had been a few months since my last journal entry because I hadn’t had much to say. But today I felt like writing again so, for a change, I decided to type my thoughts straight into a Word document. This is different to how I...
Writing is Rewriting
Back in 2013, when I finished a first draft of ‘The Sisters’ Song’ (which was called ‘Ida’s Children’ then—I’m still getting used to calling my child by a different name), I had no idea how much editing and rewriting...