Writing tricks
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While reading the Gillian Mear’s biography a few months back I discovered that when The Mint Lawn was reissued she had the opportunity to make a few changes. Yet she more or less left it how it was. Perhaps she simply didn’t have it in her to go back to that book. It was so
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Recently I wrote a piece for an online writer’s group about how I finally achieved a publishing contract for my novel, The Night Village (out in August). It is easy to see the path to publication in retrospect, and to polish over the missteps and times when it was barely visible, or so cluttered with
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Recently I listened to author Tara June Winch talk about her Miles Franklin Award winning novel, The Yield. Here are some notes from the evening.
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‘My dad says that being a Londoner has nothing to do with where you’re born. He says that there are people who get off a jumbo jet at Heathrow, go through Immigration waving any kind of passport, hop on the tube and by the time the train’s pulled into Piccadilly Circus they’ve become a Londoner.’
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It came as quite a shock to me that there are writers who dedicate a set amount of time every single week to writing applications for grants, residencies and funding. And I can see why – who doesn’t want time and space and money to write? – so I was really happy to find out
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When writing prose, it’s easy to get stuck on the mechanics of the story – who is speaking? Was the baby asleep in the last scene? Could it really be dusk already? …. and the writing itself can sometimes feel secondary, just a means of getting your characters from A to B. So turning up
Zoe Deleuil 