blog
Sometimes it’s good to suck at writing
Because then you also know when you're doing your best work. Without the dud sentences, without the stilted descriptions and turgid dialogue, you wouldn't know when you're flying. Sometimes I set out to write the worst possible prose I can, just to see what it's like....
How to know your own voice
A lot of space is given to discussions of voice whenever writers gather. We talk about how to find our authentic voice, how each of us has a unique voice, and how our voice is important - a reflection of our gift to our readers. Our voice as our expression in the...
Keep your mind off your audience
So I was writing the other day, and then I stopped. When I thought about why - actually, I procrastinated for half a day, scrubbed the kitchen benches, ate lots of inappropriate food, did huge amounts of laundry that could have waited and stopped just short of...
Worth repeating again: the NOW book
"There is the NOW book, and there are the other books." - Andrew Griffiths I was struck by this, because a lot of my clients do get stuck because there are lots of ideas in their heads about useful books that they can write. This is great on one hand, but can lead to...
9 Tips to get rhythm into your writing life
Most of us have an idea in our minds of a writer as someone who writes effortlessly, regularly, and has access to the Muse on demand. It can be hard to sit down and put words on a page when writing can feel stilted, clunky and artificial. Many of us secretly feel like...
What published authors know
There's something that authors who've been published know that people who aren't published don't, usually. I'm going to tell you upfront, too, because we have stuff to talk about here. Published authors know this: the book doesn't happen by itself. I mean, that's a...
Guest post on Invincible Summer
Hello!Today I have a guest post up at Invincible Summer: many thanks to Jess Morrow for having me over there, it's always fun to go visiting. You can read it here... Jess has just launched her Invincible Summer e-course as a totally re-vamped multimedia package. She...
Good writing, simple solutions
Often the best solutions are really simple. Working with writers in my new PowerWords sessions, I keep coming back to this essential point. The more complex the solution, the more likely it is to stop working. The more moving parts there are to keep track of, the more...
The rise of the cyborg…
By it's very truest definition, technology has been with us since the first rock was lifted and used to break open a nut. But did you ever think of yourself as a cyborg? If you have a mobile phone, even an old one, if you have a bluetooth earpiece, if you use a GPS to...
Noodling
Have you ever wondered why we have so many of our good (even our best?) ideas in the shower? There are quite a number of theories - that we're by ourselves, that warm water somehow draws them out, that out-of-tune singing is good for thinking, that the negative ions a...
Never miss a blog: join my mailing list here!
I acknowledge and pay my respects to the Wurundjeri people of the Kulin Nation who are the traditional and ongoing custodians of the land on which I live and work.Â
I pay my respects to their elders: past, present and emerging, and I acknowledge that sovereignty was never ceded. Â