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Kia Ora Readers
An update: The poetry event mentioned has been a huge success, standing room only and prizewinners winners read their poems, followed by free-for-all. Great fun, with luscious food and drink available too. And yes I read a new poem too.
Robyn Donald and I are teaching a romance writing course in late August to a contingent of Aussies. We are looking forward to a fun and challenging time. Straight after that is the NZ Romance writers' Conference (20-22 August). If you haven't booked yet, download a form at their website It will be a fun and intensive learning experience too, with overseas and local authors, editors and an NY agent attending and speaking.
If you are interested in romance writing courses (in New Zealand) have a look at the Kara School of Writing page
I now have two manuscripts awaiting assessment by editors and before plunging into the next will be catching up on lots of jobs around my study and the house, and having lunches with friends, if they still remember me. Two of our bedroom are being repapered at the moment, and there will be more to come, also I have to find some new curtains. The house is thirty years old and suddenly everything needs repairing. The dishwasher also broke down, and even my computer is having little sulky fits. It's nowhere near thirty years old and I don't want to break in a new one right now!
It's been a while - but I finally have time to update my site and send a newsletter. I will try not to be so busy in future. (huh!)
Believe it or not, most of the time I've been working, one way or another. In the past I have sometimes had people to help with part of the job - research, filing, writing and answering letters to editors and readers and people who want advice or are asking me to teach, speak, write something for them, or read aloud at some function or... But good help as always is hard to find. I've some brilliant help, but one downside of the digital age is that even more than in the past it's often quicker and easier to do it yourself rather than explain to someone exactly what you want them to do for you.
However, it wasn't all work. I made myself finish a very difficult, stubborn story before spending fun time with my family. Which was very nice and rewarding. So refreshing I started rewriting a ms that wasn't working before and that I had put aside. Amazing what you can see and how to fix it when you haven't looked at your failed work for some time. Most writers know it's best to stick a new ms in a drawer for a few weeks and start on something new before going back to it. Some of them actually do it! Well, that's another thing I need a Round Tuit for! Do you remember round tuits". A NZ advertising firm recently resurrected the concept in an ad featuring a women whose builder husband never gets around to fixing their house.
Also I'm an incurable volunteer for anything to do with writing. I monitor the local Writers' Room after taking part in its inception. It's for writers to work quietly or use the installed computer if theirs is down or commandeered by the family, or study or just chill out or make themselves a quiet cuppa when they're in town. (any of our members of the NZ Society of Authors, which sponsors the room are from out of town. We use the room and its adjacent area for meetings, and as it's situated in the centre of the arts complex for the town, it enables us to interact with other arts folk like painters, sculptors and photographers as well as other writing groups, who get special rates for using it. We sell used books elsewhere in the building to raise funds for our rent.
Writing is a lonely craft, and few people are willing to listen for a long time to a writer moaning about characters who won't behave or a plot that's run out of steam.
Of course writers also tend to be introverts, and sometimes need to be winkled out of their ivory towers and dragged into the real world for the good of their souls - and their writing. How many of you have read about a writer who is writing a book? Because it's what the writer knows about, and other writers and those odd people who read author's autobiographies will buy it, also academics doomed to teach about that writers' work, if he (it's usually he) is famous enough. But who else really wants to know?
At the moment I'm reading Steinbeck's Travels with Charlie which I'm thoroughly enjoying, and listening to
The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society by Mary Anne Shaffer and Annie Barrow, also very enjoyable. Steinbeck's Charlie is his dog, a wonderfully realised character (his reaction to meeting bears is hilarious!).The Guernsey Literary Society etc. is about a writer looking for a book to write, who finds it in the story of the Society which had its origin when the island was invaded and occupied during World War II. I knew very little about that, and the story, told in letters, is fascinating. Fiction but fact based. It reminds me a little of the book, also in letters, Of 84 Charing Cross Road by Helene Hanff.
I loved that too, and the film featuring Anthony Hopkins, managed to tell the story equally delightfully. That story was real, the shop was real, but unfortunately has gone now. Such a shame.
My latest volunteerism it to print out three copies of 45 poems for the local Poetry Day (week), which I promised to do by tomorrow, so now my website is updated (NB the Writing Class is updated too, and there is a new page link there about publishing rip-offs), I must go and talk nicely to my printer.
HINT FOR WRITERS: Look after your body! Backs and necks take a beating when you are sitting at a desk all day. Take breaks every hour if you can, even for a couple of minutes of stretching. I know it's a pain when the muse is whispering or shouting in your ear, but you need it. Exercise. I hate and loathe and detest exercise but have come to realise I must do back and neck exercises. See a physiotherapist before they start to play up and exercise for prevention rather than cure. Because once it gets to the painful stage it may be too late. If you are like me, try walking or doing exercises while listening to talking books. Good stories are a great incentive, because I don't let myself listen except when I'm walking or exercising - well, sometimes on a long car trip, I admit.
