~ 5 Comments

Closed (temporarily)

I saw The Perks of Being A Wallflower last night.

As one would expect, it was amazing and intense.

And it talked about doing what I'd been doing lately:

Charlie's Last Letter excerpt.

Because I know there are people who say all these things don’t happen.
And there are people who forget what it’s like to be sixteen when they turn seventeen.
And know these will all be stories someday and our pictures will become old photographs and we’ll all become somebody’s mom or dad.
But right now these moments are not stories.

This is happening.

I've been doing that. Living life. No more concerned with making stories.

I've been taking less photos. Going to events and listening, actually listening, enjoying it, not concerned with making sure I have the right quote or rushing home to upload a post about it.

It's ...

~ 4 Comments

So, my two weeks at Mamamia is up

And I only have three things to say.

1) I may or may not have cried in front of Mia late last night (while in the green room at ABC studios). I thought I got away with it, but according to Twitter I didn't. Fail!

2) Mia is the most amazing person you'll ever meet. I was told that I shouldn't get my hopes up, that idols can often let you down once you meet them in real life, without the gloss of the media and all the smoke screens. But Mia has been everything I thought I knew, and more. She is the most dedicated, smart, driven person. It's been an honour just to be here, let alone anything else. Just sitting in the same room as her was... I can't even find the words.

3) I don't want to go home.

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Can Fiction Writers Write About Real People?

Blonde by Joyce Carol Oates

I’ve been thinking lately about writing about people – dead or alive – but not as a biography. Merely fiction.

 It’s been done before, and done well: example of Joyce Carol Oates’ Blonde or Michael Cunningham’s The Hours spring to mind (of Marilyn Munroe and Virginia Woolf respectively).

But does that make it right? Should authors be allowed to take living people and immortalise them in a way that might not be 100% historically accurate?

The Guardian thinks fiction is up for grabs, by anyone:

The question of whether authors have the "right" to write about living or real people is not one that should be answered by the caretakers of historical reputation. Fiction is a free-for-all, and as long as an author can find someone who'll publish what they write (or these days, publish it themselves), there are no ...

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I am interning at Mamamia!

I have to let you guys in on a little secret, something that’s been killing me to keep to myself but now I can finally shout it from the roof tops!!

Firstly: it’s no secret, however, that I idolise Mia Freedman. I write about her often, stalked her at the Family Life Forums, practically memorised her books, articles – everything. You all know that.

So it’s with great pleasure that I can finally announce that currently – as I type! – I’m in Sydney interning for Mamamia, Mia’s website!

When I got the email saying that my application had been successful, I was at a shopping centre with my sister. We were in line, waiting for a juice, and I started jumping up and down. (There may or may not have ...

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Creative Writing Courses: Are They Worth It?

At the artists party on the weekend, the question came up: are writing courses worth it?

I was speaking to an author who had published seven books, started her own literary journal and written many articles, and she was entirely self-taught.

"There were no such thing as creative writing courses in my day!" She said.

Of course, the same cannot be said for me.

I've done Professional Writing and Editing (which seems to almost be the staple writing course for bookish people these days) and am now slogging my way through a degree in writing and publishing.

Coupled with some unaccredited short courses in writing, plus various sessions at festivals and conferences - well, I'm a seasoned pro at writing courses.

But are they any good?

You only have to Google the topic to be given millions of articles on the topic, and it's something that's talked ...

~ 8 Comments

That Moment Where I Purchase A Kindle and Realise Modern Technology Is Ridiculous

I finally joined the 21st century book world and yesterday purchased a Kindle.

I trotted down to the shopping centre and the lovely guy serving me gave me a discount on the bright pink case I bought to go with it.

I spent most of last night downloading books onto it, and playing around with the settings. (I'm a settings nerd like that.) I really quite like how the power off screen is pictures of books/pens/other bookish things.

Just to prove how swayed and almost brainwashed I am about modern technology, when I was looking up the features of different e-readers to compare and contrast, I was scoffing.
“I can’t browse the internet?”
“Black and white screen?”
“No touch screen?”

Honestly? Since when do I need to browse the internet when I’m buying it to read books on. Plus, if I need to ...

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Ethics

This week in class we're talking about ethics.

It's interesting, and has been making me think about ethics around what people post online.

I've got my own set of ethics that I made for myself.

And by that I mean, I usually judge each thing on a case by case, but I know what I generally do.

For instance, these new courses I'm teaching or the new residency: I choose not to release those details until it's official.

Or during the Online versus In Store Book Buying Series, when I decided not to name-and-shame publishers who denied me an interview.

I also recently had another piece of news, but before I even mentioned a whisper of it I asked for the company's social media/internet privacy policy - and yep, now my mouth is sealed shut.

Uni was talking about the differences between America and Australia, and: whether ...

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History: Who Owns It?

Many authors are famous for writing historical fiction. Some take the time period, others take real-life people and re-imagine them. Others take historical characters from other books, and re write as their own. Others take events, say they are based on truth but put their own fictional spin on them.

But what is the role, nay responsibilities, of writing history? Do fiction authors have to ‘get it right’? Or are they allowed creative licenses?

I think ‘history’ has to be split into two categories: personal history and world history.

Personally speaking, I’m currently editing my novel that is *based* on true events. I took the basic premise of what happened, and amped it up to get an entire novel out of it. It’s interesting, in this most recent draft I’ve been straying much closer to the truth: I’m finding it’s going to make ...

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Are You a Slave to Your Social Media Accounts?

Today, Sarah Wilson has a fantastic post about the perils of social media on her website.

Apparently, she's been copping some flack on Twitter about not following people who follow her. She explains that she usually lets things like this slide off her back, but got increasingly annoyed about it.

She writes,
I thought about it. It’s because I hate feeling social media-obliged. Social media should be free and easy, not bogged down in rules. The twits were e-arguing that social media should be about reciprocity. I guess I feel that there shouldn’t be any “shoulds” when it comes to social media. For me this is not the spirit of the medium, and I resent it when I feel pressure otherwise.

She has a fantastically long post about social media, and ends with her personal boundaries which include using Twitter ...

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On Being A Workaholic

I read this fantastic article on Sarah Wilson's website yesterday.

It was about leaving work at 5.30pm and, you know, actually having a life.

Sarah starts by saying that Facebook's CFO Sheryl Sandberg Leaves Work at 5:30pm.

Which, one would think, is unheard of, especially given her role. And this current climate of being workaholics.

Sarah writes,

Why shouldn’t we work less hours? Evidence suggests we work smarter when our parameters are narrowed. The French have mandated reduced working hours. They like it. Four-day work weeks…I can vouch for them (I still take Thursdays off and get just as much done in a week).   I made the bold move of stepping away from the clock-in-clock-out system a while back and now set my own hours. It took me ages to get used to this idea and I still feel odd finishing at 6pm, when all my ...