It was ink dark outside when the contractions started but I waited until 5am before waking him. ‘Are you sure?’ he asked. ‘Yes, I’m sure!’ I said. ‘Could it still be prelabour?’ ‘These are no Braxton Hicks. And they’re getting closer together. I’ve been timing.’ He had good reason to ask: my prelabour had gone … Continue reading
Latest Entries
Stocktake.
<10,000 words from a first draft. Five days from finishing my PCWC residency. Four days from PCWC’s Publication Event. Three days from my last workshop as Writer in Residence. Three children and one husband forgetting my face. Two consultation appointments to book. Two days until applications to be a part of a 2019 writers’ festival … Continue reading
The sendings.
There is nothing like clicking the “Send” or “Submit” button to thrust you into a whitewater rush of doubt and self-criticality. Even dread. That’s what I’m experiencing, anyway. After three years of hitting that 100-plus rejection target, I find my pain is not so much in the rejections, but in the sendings. I think it’s … Continue reading
The story of a seed of a story.
Thanks so much to those of you who have read Between shelves in the last 2 1/2 months [if you haven’t and would like to, you still can]. Attached below is the unedited seed that grew into this piece of flash, written in the seven minutes between two train stations. Because sometimes a story comes … Continue reading
Four ways to make your writing time more productive.
My biggest barrier to getting words on the page is time, closely followed by the paradox of choice. For me, this paradox is the clash of excellent ideas with planned projects, and it would paralyse me if I didn’t have a few tricks to snap me out of it. These four continue to serve me … Continue reading
New directions.
Lately I have been experimenting with pictures, sound, and video as storytelling tools. Part of my process has resulted in completely new works; some of it has involved enriching stories already posted on this blog. I will share new works with you in future posts. For now, I invite you to revisit past posts with … Continue reading
Counting blessings.
These past few weeks, I have been counting my blessings. In a writerly sense, this year has already brought me a shortlisting and publication of four short fictions. Later this year, I will be a Writer-in-Residence at the Peter Cowan Writers Centre, thanks largely to my 2017 FAWWA residency and my refusal to be genre-bound. I … Continue reading
