Building a website has been a major learning curve. I've found it exciting to extend myself beyond what I consider to be the norm. It has given me a greater appreciation of all the practical advantages modern technology has to offer.When I think about my parents, who considered the telephone and radio great advances, it makes me wonder what our descendents will consider the norm in another few generations. The ideas are limitless. One technological advance forms the next building block for the next step.   

The days are rushing past as Christmas and the New Year fast approach. Here in the Southern Hemisphere we welcome warmer weather. Summer, sunshine and Christmas picnics on the beach. Yaaay! It can't come fast enough.

All around us the birds are feeding babies, the lushness of early summer is making gardens in my locality blooming beautiful (excuse the pun).

My writing has been progressing. Summer also means preparing manuscripts for competitions. The deadline for The Clendon Award is February, Great Expectations the end of December.

November 4th.

Recently a friend asked me what was the one thing that kept me writing?  That question made me think.  Hard.

Why do I take time out from my busy life to write about make believe people? Any number of glib answers sprang to mind but every one left me dissatisfied. Why do I write?  For me it's a compulsive need to see where my people go wrong, where they mess up but most of all it's the joy of watching them grow and change and overcome. 

Writing mirrors this process. One book generates the idea for the next. The more one feeds that creative energy the greater the pool  to draw inspiration from grows.  This is behind the adage: if you want to be a writer... then write.While I really enjoy writing for its creativity, I've also enjoyed the right brain activity of creating a website.

One is a very comfortable fit with the other.

Having deadlines keeps my nose to the keyboard and ensures I make the best use of available time and energy. All the time sending out resumes to agents to find one to represent me, as difficult as finding a publisher.

Today, it's time to give followers a taste of my writing. I invite you to read new excerpts.

I've enjoyed my first Christmas party of the season. And with it the realization that Christmas and the new year is just around the corner. And wonder of wonders it was warm and sunny. When a group of writers get together you can guarantee a fun, educational day and lots of laughter. The 500 word Christmas stories ranged from hilarious to tender and brought tears to the eye.

As a fun activity, we formed groups and re-enacted some of the great love stories in history giving them a modern day twist. I'm sure Shakespeare, that great sage of drama, would have appreciated out efforts to translate Romeo and Juliet and Mark Antony and Cleopatra into modern day usage. A laugh a minute.

Although, being old school, where **** language was considered woolshed language, and not fit for polite society, I confess to being a tad uncomfortable with modern day lingo. The teachers in the group explained this was normal playground vernacular, something I find quite sad. It's adding to what many refer to as the 'bastardization' of English. It is a great pity that so many of our young ones have lost the art of writing a clear message or being able to comprehend written English.

The English language has always had a fascination for me, one I get great joy from in my writing.

10.01.10

Another New Year will all it's razmatazz has come and gone. Here in my neck of the woods it has finally ushered in hot dry summer weather ---a boon to holiday makers, not so much for farmers desperately wanting rain to produce food for livestock. Yet in the Northern Hemisphere the weather is appalling. That satellite picture of Great Britain under it's icy blanket is awe inspiring.

Mankind has been at the mercy of the vagaries of the weather since time began. Now if only there was a magical rope we could pull when we wanted rain or sunshine....  Ah it seems to me I've heard that story somewhere before....

What with Christmas, New Year and celebrating another birthday I've been thinking about all the things that have helped shape my life to this point. At the top of the list has to be reading.

Books have been the one constant in the ever-changing pattern of my life.

Ever since I discovered the magical world of words as a small child reading has been my educator and my secret pleasure and often my vice....

Many a time I've heard the click of the alarm to awaken us for morning milking and quickly extinguished the light so my dear husband didn't realise I'd been reading all night! It used to bug him no end. He always thought I was half asleep but when the last cows went through the milking shed and should one be missing after a few moments of mental review, I could tell him which cow to go looking for!

I'm like that with books and stories. The story I remember most from my early childhood, aside from the magical pot of porridge, was the story of the weather rope I read in our Primer's Progress. It began like all good stories... Once upon a  time there was a weather rope hanging from the sky and every farmer could pull the rope if he wanted sunshine to make his hay or rain to water his crops. Soon, fierce battles raged as each farmer though his needs took precedence over all the others. There was so much angry tugging on the rope it frayed and broke. A very angry weather god appeared, face as black as a thundercloud and decreed that as mankind couldn't agree over something as simple as determining the neighborhood weather they would henceforth have to be content with whatever Mother nature saw fit to provide....

Remembering this story now amid the growing International chorus over Climate Change... It has an eerily familiar ring.    

23.2.10

Competitions and Deadlines.

Working to Deadlines is something all writers must learn to do.

Published writers are used to deadlines...the time and date a publisher gives them by which time they must have the finished copy to fit into their publishing schedule. For the striving writer, competition deadlines give them an accurate facsimile of the real thing. This is one of the big plusses for the striving writer to enter competitions. The other big plus of competitions is feedback.

It is hard to be unbiased about your own work. After all every writer thinks the book, article, short story they have just finished is the  best piece of work ever submitted to an editor.Why else do we keep writing? If we didn't have faith in our own work would we keep trying? The short answer to this is no. I for one wouldn't if I didn't think I had something worthwhile to say.

Today I sent off two entries for the Clendon Award. This award run by Barbara and Peter Clendon of Barbara's Books of Auckland's Manukau City, in conjunction with Romance Writers of New Zealand is one of the premier competitions in the world. What makes it unique is that the competition is for a completed romance of any genre and the initial judging is done by readers. And readers make fine judges, and their feedback is particularly valuable and usually straight off the shoulder. One thing writers can never afford to loose sight of is that editors are first and foremost readers.And without readers there would be no book publishers.

Placing in this award AKA "Finish The Damn Book" has been the instrumental in launching many writing careers. So many winners and place getters of the Clendon Award are now published authors, several of whom have reached best seller lists in the USA.

So as I plod on with my next project I am keeping my pinkies crossed.

Another month and another milestone passed. I've been writing every day and and my W IP is no longer in progress.

It is finished, polished and after another week of settling, ready to go out to a wider audience.

Another goal set and one more to accomplish.

I have set myself the task this week of writing a query letter that will knock both an editor's and agent's socks off.

I know I can do it. And I'm sure if I keep repeating that mantra often enough I will believe it. Oh yea of little faith...I can just hear the scoffing words. But my crisis of confidence is due to the return of my entry into an International Competition.

Talk about coming back to earth with a thud!  Am I glad I read the convener's comments first. All Judging, she said was subjective.

Judge one loved it and is eagerly awaiting seeing my submission in print.

Judge two though my heroine schizophrenic and my hero a jerk. Ouch!

Judge three though my work needed a careful edit. Well that was a fair comment.

Heaven knows what the lowest scoring judge thought. I'm probably better off not knowing.

After I'd come back up from the dismals and re-read all the comments I could see the positive points. So after picking my drooping jaw off the carpet I set to work. One comment stuck in my mind as I worked. I'd dug my hero into a very big hole that would be difficult to climb out of. So I gave him a good telling off, made him mind his manners and play nice.

And he co-operated. As for my  schizophrenic heroine. I made her stop and think what she wanted to achieve. Then insisted she tone down the histrionics (and mind her manners) and what do you know she co-operated as well.

I've spent a grueling time editing the whole manuscript line by line, highlighter and ball pen at the ready. My outdoor swing seat, a perfect retreat, now has  a curious lime green highlighter rash on the cushions.

So all in all, the competition did help my writing and that after all Possums, (to quote Dame Edna) is the overall aim of entering. 

24.01.10

This week has been a mixture of happiness and sadness. We've had two weddings in the family and the death of our beloved old dog, Casey, who died in her sleep aged seventeen.  Her passing was a merciful release as she'd been struggling with bad arthritis for a few weeks. And this is the mix of events that make up life.

The weddings were delightful.

In an age when so many young people just set up house, it is so refreshing to meet young couples who are prepared to make a commitment to each other and actively embrace the concept of marriage with all its inherent challenges.

Both the bride and groom come from families with a strong history of commitment to marriage and have worked at their marriages in good times and bad.

Writing is much like marriage.

It takes a lot of conscious effort to nurture and encourage your writing, both in times of success and in times of rejection. In that first rush of pain after yet another rejection it is so easy to question whether you really want to carry on writing.

I can hear you say. NOT carry on writing? Of course I will. I'm a writer! Then the negative thoughts creep in. Am I REALLY a writer?  Do I want to continue on this giddy merry-go-round of write my heart out only to be rejected yet again. It is so fatally easy to slip into this way of thinking and this is where we, as writers,  need to nurture our love of the craft. Nourish our souls, that quiet place inside us that is the wellspring of creativity.

There is no easy fix or sure fire recipe that a writer can follow that will lead to certain publication.

It is a case of grieve for the loss of a chance and then buckle on an armor of equal parts grit and determination... and  in the age old words of the song...pick yourself up, dust yourself off and start all over again.     

Overcoming obstacles is at the core of living. Every person alive on this planet has some difficulty, some obstacle, some trial that makes life difficult for them. The ability to overcome is possibly the greatest gift life gives.

For a writer the ability to overcome is paramount. A writer has to overcome rejections from editors and agents, overcome the doubts about our ability, but most of all, for me, it's been the journey of self-discovery and overcoming my doubts about  self belief.

14.2.10

How does a writer stay focused?

This is a question I'm often asked and one that is difficult to answer. To me focus is not so much about how many words get on the page on any given day it's about how those words read on the page.

Let me clarify. It is very easy to fill a page with words. Far too easy to repeat the same message in half a dozen different ways. It is an annoying habit and a trap I can fall into with terrifying ease. It takes great discipline and focus to weed out every unnecessary word so the writing is tight, clear and not verbose. To be successful one must examine each phrase, each sentence, each paragraph and ensure nothing is repeated and that each sentence adds to the story in such a way that it keeps the reader excited and eager to turn the page.

This is where discipline and focus play such an important part in a writer's journey.

In the first frenzy of creativity words pour out and fill the page with a great adrenaline rush. This for me is the easy part. It's the editing, tightening every phrase, ruthlessly cutting every unnecessary word creating a tight, polished piece of work that is the true test of a writer's focus and stamina.

It hurts to cut that perfect phrase, that perfect piece of prose but, to succeed, a writer needs to crop words for the greater benefit of the whole.

A tough and at times a tediously arduous endeavor.