December 2011
2 posts
Review: Caleb's Crossing by Geraldine Brooks
Narrated by a young girl during the settling of America, Caleb’s Crossing is the story of Bethia’s friendship with an Indian boy as she follows his ‘crossing’ into English society and ultimately, Harvard College.
The daughter of a Puritan preacher, Bethia is aware of her place as a female - she was to become a wife and a mother, and so her education was of little...
Review: The Sense of an Ending by Julian Barnes
Narrated by Tony as he reflects on his life (we don’t know the retiree’s age, only that he feels old) the story follows an encounter with a girlfriend from his past which leads to the biographical introspection and a return to his youthful ways.
The story is divided into two sections. The first is Tony’s recollections of his...
October 2011
1 post
I’m a mother to a gorgeous little boy.
September 2011
22 posts
4 tags
Review: The Year of The Flood by Margaret Atwood
This book is the second in the MaddAdam Trilogy, following Oryx and Crake however easily able to be read as a stand-alone.
The story is told from the points of view from two survivors of the Great Flood, a civilisation-destroying event that is the basis for the plot but never actually explained to the reader.
The survivors Toby and Ren are members of a religious group who are now isolated and...
Review: Catch-22
A tale of a young US bombardier based with his squadron in Italy in WWII, Catch-22 is considered a modern classic and is on many people’s must-read list (perhaps because the term is in our everyday lexicon).
The main character Yossarian is tired of flying missions and has been plotting various schemes to get himself sent home.
The author Joseph Heller was an advertising copywriter and his...
Five People I Admire Most (writing exercise)
Five people I admire most - and why (in note form).
1. Michael (friend) - web and gaming designer
His drive to constantly learn new things about his craft.
His family is the most important thing in his life.
He’s always positive and optimistic in a generally tough art/field.
He’s able to problem-solve and think on his feet.
He’s kind at heart.
The example that Michael...
3 tags
Reading Sad Books
Do you avoid books you know are going to be sad?
I have watched movies that I’ve known beforehand will be sad or depressing but I find movies don’t affect me as much as books.
With a movie you are watching the characters experience the story in front of you, and while you may sympathise with them for those few viewing hours (and sometimes a little more if it got you thinking), the...
3 tags
“People say, ‘I’m going to sleep now,’ as if it were nothing. But it’s really a...”
– George Carlin (via suzywire)
Very cool.
Writing: Finding the Time and Place
Taking part in this writing challenge has been not only a matter of pushing myself to write but also an activity in discovering how best I write. I’ve never really had a routine – I’ve simply scribbled things down as they’ve come to me. Occasionally I have set aside time to write which on the whole I have found an unsuccessful technique.
When working part time at my previous job I had a fairly...
creative writing
I’ve just finished reading a book that initially I thought was ok but a bit dry. Just pulp. I did enjoy one of the characters.
In my creative writing I’ve discovered I’ve started writing my female lead with similar characteristics as the one in the book. I guess it had more of an impact on me than I realised. This is why I keep reading books to the end, and why I read books I...
I was all set to send off my final journalism course assessment as an on-spec pitch to a few gaming publications (one at a time, pending the outcomes of the pitches of course) but it occurred to me that at 38 weeks pregnant it probably wasn’t the best thing to do.
My plan was to send it off, get it accepted and sorted over the next few weeks and possibly in print by the end of the year or...
Journalist
I received confirmation today that I have completed my journalism course.
*celebrate*
Courage
‘Courage is the absence of fear.’ Sandy Mitchell, Innocence Proves Nothing
It takes courage to tackle that writing project. To schedule time; to avoid distractions; to keep writing when you’re unconfident with your ideas or characters or where they’re going. To tell people you are working on a story. To tell them it’s going well and you’re enthusiastic about...
I’m hoping that all this reading and writing and thinking about literature that I’m doing whilst pregnant will be somehow passed onto my baby, and my child will grow up with the passion for words that I have.
September Writing Challenge
Seven minutes a day. Just write, don’t think, don’t stop, just write.
Go.
August 2011
8 posts
Novel Progress
I have only just discovered Dystopian August (on 31 Aug unfortunately but at least that means there is plenty of reading to do!) and it has sent me into a flurry of creativity.
I have had a novel concept brewing in my head and on paper since last year’s NaNoWriMo however it hasn’t progressed much further than a few thousand words, stuck somewhat due to a motivational lull and creative...
Now that I’ve completed my final assessment for my journalism course I’m looking forward to getting stuck into some writing. During the time of my enrollment I’ve always felt guilty about ‘indulging’ in creative writing and even blogging as I should be working on my coursework (the danger of self-paced courses being that there’s always something better to do...
This is how it works: first you do the thing you are scared shitless of, then you get the courage to do it.
George Clooney in Three Kings
I will never feel guilty about spending my money on books.
Or bookshelves.
National Bookshop Day
I bought some books for National Bookshop Day on the weekend:
Embassytown by China Mieville
The Year of the Flood by Margaret Atwood
Fahrenheit 451 by Ray Bradbury
The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle by Haruki Murukami
I bought the first one on an excursion with my fellow book-lover friend to Avid Reader, a Brisbane institution. The store was packed with customers and had authors visiting for the...
Feature Article
I am working on my final assessment for my journalism course, a full-length article. This course has taken me just under two years to complete, the maximum time allowed. I have had to push myself to do every assignment, every reading but I’ve found that after a good writing session I have thoroughly enjoyed myself. I’ve experienced the Writer’s Rush.
As for this article...
Starting Again
I’m giving the blog a bit of an overhaul. I had started to use it as something of a scrapbook, collecting pictures and quotes from various places across tumblr (like most people, I suspect). I actually have another tumblr that really IS a scrapbook of all my favourite geek images but I’ve since abandoned it, realising what a great time-suck it had become. I was constantly checking it,...
6 tags
the twisted traditionalist: Date A Girl Who Reads... →
graceastary:
(In Response to Charles Warnke’s You Should Date An Illiterate Girl.)
Date a girl who reads. Date a girl who spends her money on books instead of clothes. She has problems with closet space because she has too many books. Date a girl who has a list of books she wants to read, who…
June 2011
2 posts
April 2011
1 post
February 2011
2 posts
Do you ever get the feeling you haven’t ended up where you were supposed to?
I was going to study music.
December 2010
8 posts
1 tag
1 tag
NaNoWriMo
I was intending to participate in my first NaNoWriMo this year. The weekend beforehand, I jotted down some ideas for characters and settings and decided I’d just sit down on the first day of November and start writing. I recorded my favourite TV shows for the week and my husband agreed to do most of the cooking, at least for the first week (we’d see how it would work and make a plan). On the first...
November 2010
10 posts
“We need to make books cool again. If you go home with somebody and they don’t...”
– John Waters (via bookshelfporn)
Creative Energy
I don’t know how writers do it!
I’m writing a story that started out as my NaNoWriMo project but is looking more like a December project as I gather research and ideas for the plot.
I have a blog on gaming and technology.
A tumblr I use as a scrapbook for the geeky things I find around the internet.
And I’m still plodding along on my journalism course.
I am absolutely consumed with my...
“Siri and I have been together for 30 years and have shared our work with each...”
– Paul Auster on the influence of his wife Siri Hustvedt. (via somethingchanged)