I’d never written a play before I wrote As the Sun Sets. Well, one, as a very naïve and unskilled nineteen year old. It was a terrible rip-off of Tarantino, or maybe Scorsese, entitled And the City Rats Screamed. Hardly a homage, barely a fan-fic. A misguided attempt to write a movie I’d not seen yet. It […]
writing
Story Planning—How I Move from Inspiration to the Page
How I plan a story is very similar to how I plan a road trip: the car is packed, I have a full tank of petrol and I know basically where I’m headed, but the actual route I will take to reach my destination is anyone’s guess. My writing philosophy is something akin to, “Let’s […]
Journey Tree
I had been plagued for weeks by a recurrent dream involving a tree, but of what species I could not tell. Its branches were long and its leaves were wide, and its trunk was smothered in patches of green moss and layers of loose bark. As I got closer to it, it reached out to […]
Even The Best Can Get Better
There is a sign on State Highway 2 near where I live in New Zealand aimed at motorcyclists. It says: “Even the best can get better.” Each time I drive past it, it makes me smile, because it speaks to me not as a motorcycle owner, but as an artist and writer, passionate about what […]
Finding My Way Back
My regular readers and followers will know that I frequently write for mental health. I’m also aware that this often turns people off too. “Oh great, she’s going on about depression again.” “Why does she always focus on the serious stuff?” “She must be pretty unstable if she has to keep focusing on all that.” […]
Slowing Down and Changing Gears.
I’m tired. I don’t want to admit it, but I am. I promised myself last year to pay more attention to my ‘give-a-fuck’-budget, and by that I meant that I needed to consider whether something was really worth my time, my energy or my money. I also said that if an event I was invited […]
The best writing tip I ever received: Don’t stop
Writing is hard. Oh, certainly, the act of writing is easy enough; you start with a word, and you add another, and then another, and another after that. Eventually, you form sentences and paragraphs. If you keep going, you might end up with pages and chapters, and beyond that, entire stories. Just like Dr Frankenstein, […]