I spent the past long weekend at Continuum X -- this year's Australian national speculative fiction convention, where fans and writers and authors gather together to chat about science fiction, fantasy, horror and other related topics. It was held at Melbourne's Intercontinental Hotel at Rialto, a fairly classy venue as these things go. About the … Continue reading A few convention highlights – Continuum X
Work on my novel revision has been coming along well during the past month. I'm still spending lots of time working on 'creative endeavours' in cafes, and still very much enjoying myself. I have a routine that's not a routine -- that is, it changes from day to day, but there's a certain modular regularity … Continue reading Sunday Journal ~ life balance, new website and a book launch
Every so often I read a book that really makes me stop and think about how stories are told. There's a lot of theory out there stating the 'rules'. But, at the end of the day, anything goes as long as it works... As long as a reader engages with it. It's really good to … Continue reading What if the main character dies in chapter 2?
I've been writing steadily over the past two weeks. That is, I've been putting in a couple of hours most days, mostly in cafes. I've been treating 'creative endeavours' (including 'cafe writing') as another client in this new freelance/self-employed life of mine; another client with its own timesheet category. Not only does this log the … Continue reading Sunday journal ~ the other client
The past couple of weeks have been a challenge on the creativity front, owing to a few different factors, one of which has been the bad behaviour of my netbook computer -- which is the machine I've been taking to cafes. Basically the battery has more or less died, giving me little more than 1.5 … Continue reading Sunday journal ~ entering the world of Mac
On Saturday I attended the inaugural Conflux Writers Day -- a day of short talks and workshops on various aspects of writing, held in Canberra. Organised by the Conflux team, headed up by Australian SF author Nicole Murphy, the Conflux Writers Day was also the prelude to the annual Aurealis Awards, which are Australia's premier … Continue reading Harnessing creativity at Conflux Writers Day
My main creative achievement for this week has been a new opening scene for project WIP. Not precisely what I was planning to do, but fun nonetheless. It came about because I was writing some notes about the middle of the book, sharpening objectives, motivations, stakes and so forth, trying to figure out where and how to … Continue reading Sunday journal ~ new opening scene
With an armful of devilcat (making it hard to type), I am happy to report a strong showing on the writing/revision front this week. I enjoyed reading through my writing journals (mostly) and have been thinking deeply about what needs to be done with this book -- and how I'm going to do it. I'm … Continue reading Sunday journal ~ keep it true
I'm contemplating a regular (semi-regular?) Sunday journal post, in which I muse briefly on recent creative endeavours and/or achievements. If it gets too boring, I'll stop, but let's see how we go... This past week I finished reading through the messy first draft of the novel I've been working on for the past, er, while. … Continue reading Sunday journal ~ rhythm
Today I'm participating in a blog hop about my writing process. I was tagged by the inspirational Liv Rancourt, who writes paranormal and romance, often at the same time. Her novel Forever and Ever, Amen is published by Crimson Romance and she has several other novels in the pipeline. (Read about Liv's writing process here.) … Continue reading Blog hop: My writing process
Ellen Gregory 