I just found the link to the website for this event. To get there, click here

I know I promised this ages ago, but honestly, I’ve been flat out! This writing course I’m doing is fantastic, but very time consuming. Add to that the fact that I’m trying to run my business as well, and you’ll understand why it’s been so hard to get back here. Plus, the weather has been super hot, and I couldn’t even turn on my computer for about three days.

But I’ve put ‘Sophie’s Rose’, the first prize winner in the Fellowship of Australian Writers (Vic) 2006 National Literary Award on my site now. You can read it here

I’ve included some notes about how I came up with the idea and what I wanted to achieve.

So happy reading!

Oh by the way, the young adult novel is coming along nicely. It’s so good to have goals for one thing, and a mentor/teacher reading your work for another. This is going to be the best thing I ever did for my writing career.

I think writers should be classed as saints because we have to be so patient.

Day after day, we churn out work, send it off to publishers, magazines, or competitions, and then wait. And wait. And wait. So much work has been put into bringing a piece of writing to life – coming up with an idea, getting the words down, editing, polishing, reworking. And then all that work is met with silence as the months drag by.

The key, I know, is to keep writing and submitting, and not to focus on the results to the point of neglecting your writing. But it’s hard when you’ve done so much and there’s no feedback because the deadlines are months away, or the publisher takes his/her time.

I’ve got quite a few short stories entered in competitions that don’t get judged for a few months, not to mention the manuscripts waiting for acceptance by a publisher. So I’m going to resist the urge to down pen (or computer keyboard) and wait for a response. Instead, I’m going to soldier on.

I’m facing the biggest challenge in my writing career. I’m about to start on a three month intensive writing course which requires submitting up to three pieces of work a week. I’ve decided to devote this time to my young adult novel, which has been languishing in the background. It’s time to really get going on it and se if it has potential. I know it will be a very tiring time, but it will also be rewarding, because I’ll get feedback on my writing. Feedback! Bliss! There’s nothing better than to network with other writers and get constructive feedback on your writing.

So I’ll keep you informed of how I’m going. Who knows, maybe at the end of three months, there’ll be a nearly complete novel. And this project should distract me from camping out at the letterbox, or constantly checking my emails for those longed for results! 

Self-publishing doesn’t always get much support. Authors seem to get more kudos from having their books in print.

But the beauty of self-publishing for me is:

1. control over the content; and
2. better sales.

An interview with a self-published author of a non-fiction book in Valerie Khoo’s blog demonstrates both of these points. Yes, it takes a lot of nerve, belief in yourself and heaps of marketing and promotion, but once you’ve identified your market, you’re off and running.

That’s why I’m going to self-publish my guide dog story. I want control over the content and I want it to get to the audience who want to read it. I’ll go around schools and tell them about it, do some readings and get feedback. Then there’s the wider internet community who I can tap into.

I think self-publishing will be a growing phenomenon.