creative writing | creative life
I want to talk about the voices in my head. One is kind, loving, soothing. One is optimistic, eager, confident. One is understanding, empathetic, wise. One is bitter and angry, always finding fault— with me and with anyone who crosses my path. One is mean spirited and full of envy. One is full of woe …
Continue reading "There’s a new voice in my head. Do you know her?"
A writing coach recently asked me why I don't mentor people one-on-one. Okay. So in the past five years, thousands of authors and illustrators have come through girl&duck. Whether they've joined the Scribbles Academy, hung out in the Duck Pond, completed one of my online 'capsule courses', read my blog or simply watched my videos …
Several years ago a stranger approached me (via email). She wanted to meet for coffee. She wanted to talk to me about creativity and writing and the world of children’s literature and…creativity. When you're an author you often get requests like this. And by-and-large my fallback is no. I mean, can you imagine what it’s …
This time last year, (it was winter, I remember it well ), I went down to Melbourne for the weekend. I was catching up with family, having dinner with my publisher, doing a spot of shopping. All the nice things. Instead of staying in a hotel, I decided I try an air bnb, city stay, …
Continue reading "Stop Looking at Me, Oprah! Or, Why Settings Are So Important to Your Stories"
Our society thrives on a covert and highly divisive code: Don't take yourself so seriously. Don't be so intense! Lighten up, dear reader! On the surface it makes sense. It seems jovial and jolly hockey sticks and weirdly generous. But when you go deeper, you see cracks in this logic. And, more importantly, you see …
1. Get Good Photos. Lots of 'em! For me, this tip originally came from Denise Duffield-Thomas. And then from watching Leonie Dawson's branding reach magical proportions. Get good photos. You will not regret it. It's made a huge difference to my biz and continues to raise my profile. Truly. Everything started to shift and change …
Years ago, when I was working in kidlit publishing, we used to receive enormous bundles of unsolicited manuscripts in the mail. Bloody truckloads. Hard copy. You with me? So many manuscripts that I had a large cardboard box (the kind that nicely holds 15 bottles of wine...) full of potential children's books, sitting at my …
We had an amazing thread going in the Duck Pond, last week. We were talking about ‘quiet’ books. You know the type. Gentle, nuanced, often deep. The kind of books that leave a mark, make you think. Perhaps even make you clever… Manuscripts (whether adult fiction or kidlit) often get rejected on the grounds …
It's the big question, isn't it? The big, sad, sorry question. Sigh. I have of late been working on the sales page for the Scribbles Academy. If you run an online biz you'll know that writing a decent sales page is a massive job. If you don't run an online biz let me tell you …
Super quick post because ALL THE PLATFORMS, right?? I'll be LIVE in the Duck Pond, our private Facebook group, tomorrow. That's: Friday, July 3, 11.15am AEST. The Scribbles Academy opens later this month (July) for its ONLY intake for 2020 and I want to talk about that! I'll also be chatting about my own creative …
