Pantsing Your Way To A Plot
To pants or to plot? That is the question. It does not really matter now. The main thing is I made it to the end of my third novel. I don’t know what it was, but getting to the end seemed like climbing Everest. Not that I have climbed Everest, but writing the novel...
The Trials Of Independent Author Time Management
I kind of lost the plot for a while (slight pun intended). I forgot to manage my time. I got caught up in the business of publishing. I have been obsessed with watching my sales rankings and trying to optimise my book’s descriptions, categories and...
Stream Of Consciousness And Writing At The Speed Of Light
I’m doing an experiment. I am trying to put as much down on the page as possible in the shortest amount of time. I am hoping it will also make sense and not be mindless dribble. A lot of the blogs I write use a technique called stream of consciousness. They are...
How To Make An Old Year New Again: Part 2
In part one of this post I looked back on my independent author experience up to now. My journey is not influenced by the ringing in of a so-called new year. Just as with the old year, in the new year I will be celebrating a growth and not a rebirth. I am aware my...
How To Make An Old Year New Again: Part 1
It’s the wrong way around. Old is not new. Every year we celebrate the so-called new year. It is not new at all, it is a year older. We should be celebrating a growth and not a rebirth. The commonly held idea is that we can make a new start with the beginning of...
Taking Stock Of Where You Are As An Authorpreneur
Not that long ago I began writing in earnest. I plunged into it and along the way discovered I have a talent which had laid buried for most of my life. I made a change. I decided to pursue my creativity. It has opened doors for me. It has introduced me to a whole new...
A Witching We Will Go: Time To Celebrate A New Novel
Very soon my second book, about a whole other witching world, will hit the stores. Even though I have been through the process once, it still feels like the first time. My writers journey started in earnest in July this year. At that stage I set up my own publishing...
Writing From An Indigenous Perspective: Part 2
The feeling that I didn’t have the right to write from an indigenous perspective was a major obstacle for me for a long time. It prevented me from finishing a musical around the original idea for Loreless. It held me back with writing the novel. No matter how many...
The Self-Help Guide to Self-Help Gurus
Learning the ropes as an author and independent publisher involves gleaning information from all kinds of sources. Inevitably you are drawn into what the internet has to offer. There are thousands of experts and gurus out there who are more than willing to share their...
Adventures Of A Writer In The Wild
I’m sitting here alone. A writer in the wild. On a Wednesday morning I share a big wooden table with a group of writers. It is located in a yoga centre in a small side street in the old part of Amsterdam. Usually there are several of us scribbling on block pads or...
Fairies and Tantrums: What Happened The Day Before The Launch
About a week ago everything changed, again. I sent my book Loreless out into the world. To use a well-worn cliché, it was a baptism of fire. On the morning preceding publishing day I wrote down my thoughts. Now they make interesting reading. Escaping with words I...
Finding Your Voice Is A Balancing Act
In a couple of days the band will be returning to the recording studio for probably the last session this year. It’s mixing time! I have just been listening back to the first rough mixes of the recordings. We did them over six months ago during our first session in...
Never Lose Sight Of The Big Picture
I just discovered this stream of consciousness. I wrote it a few months ago. Sometimes, its good to have this kind of thing to put it all into perspective. Lack of a view of the big picture happens to be one of the biggest battles with writing professionally. The...
How To Make Yourself Creatively Accountable
If you are trying to make a living with a creative endeavour you need to hold yourself accountable for what you do. Writing requires enormous dedication. There is a large percentage of the population who have thought about writing a book. Supposedly this figure is...
What Is Synchronised Drowning?
It’s the weekly swimming lesson and I am sitting on a balcony above the pool. I have a birds-eye view of everything. I am watching my daughter flailing through the water and trying to remember what that was like. She looks so uncoordinated. It looks like synchronised...
How To Become A Publishing Expert
There seems to be no end of people online with an opinion on writing. And not only about what the best methods are for putting words on the page, there are also literally thousands giving advice on publishing. I’m no publishing expert but it is clear to me that...
Invoking Parkinson’s Law
Mr. Parkinson had it all worked out. Government departments have a peculiar way of working. There is a certain amount of work to be done. It makes no difference if you have a week to do it in or a year. The work will get done in the prescribed amount of time. It will...Discover a part of Australia you never imagined existed.
Read Loreless
Do you like stories about witches? Ghosts? Powerful entities? You must meet Anaïs Blue.
