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Rose’s travel jottings
1 Comment »6th August, 2011; Category: Blogs
The last few weeks have been very busy. Our daughter Rose, a teacher in one of our rural high schools, has taken up a teaching position in a school in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia for the rest of this year. My wife and I have been busy helping her to get ready for this big adventure as well as tidying her house and garden ready for a house sitter while she is away. It’s been an exhausting few weeks but now she is safely in her new environment and quickly adapting to life in a strange culture.
Good writing skills run in the family as she has reactivated her blog to help family and friends share in her adventure. Her site is called Rose’s Travel Jottings (click to access). I’d recommend a visit every few days, especially as she adds photos. And later in the year we are planning to visit her and then the three of us will travel several other countries together. Stayed tuned for our adventure too.
Good reading – and good writing.
Rose Hampel
Wendy Noble: reviewer, writer and speaker
I’ve been meaning to do this for a little while now.
Introducing Wendy Noble: reviewer, writer and speaker
I knew of Wendy through a mutual friend before I met her. The first time I did meet her was in a seminar while doing my Master of Arts course several years ago. She had almost finished her MA degree. I took an instant liking to her; warm, friendly and with a delightful sense of humour sharply honed by a few knocks in the School of Life. Her engaging personality lit up the room, and her perceptive comments about my writing, and that of my fellow students, was deply appreciated.
Wendy has recently entered the world of blogging. Her site (click here) is a delightful read about books, writing and general observations about people and life, It is an insightful commentary worth reading – even if all you want is a good laugh.
Links:
Writers and public speaking
I would guess that writers are mostly introverted people, happy to sit in their office tapping away at their computer creating stories, novels, poems, articles and whatever. Many shy away from the spotlight of public speaking. I believe that this is a narrow view of the writer’s life, one that is potentially limiting to their success as writers.
Writers need to be public speakers
As much as some writers might want to run from this suggestion, in order to promote one’s work the writer today needs to e a good public speaker. I have done considerable public speaking in other areas but very little in relation to my writing. Over the last 5 years I have had many opportunities to speak about Australian birds as a direct result of another blog of mine, Trevor’s Birding.
Prepare to be a good speaker
Joanna Penn on her blog The Creative Penn has written an excellent article on this very topic. Her article How to prepare for public speaking covers the topic really well. I recommend that you flip over there and have a read – or listen to her video. Excellent stuff.
Good writing.
Taking a short break from writing
I am currently taking a short break from my writing.
I am on a much needed holiday visiting my son and daughter in law in Sydney. It is also a great opportunity to get to know my grandson a little better too, and at 19 months he is cuteness personified – and that’s a completely unbiased opinion of course!
One of the things I did before leaving home last week was to write and pre-post a series of articles to appear on my other two blogs (see the side bar for the links to them). These will be appearing every few days while I am away, so I don’t have to worry and can relax. Unfortunately I didn’t get to write a complete series for this blog. I just ran out of time.
I tend to write blog posts in spurts, sometimes writing 5 to 10 or more in the one day and scheduling them to appear at later dates on a regular basis. In this way I get into a rhythm with my writing, totally focussed on the blog and the needs of readers. After I have several weeks’ worth of posts scheduled I can then get on with other writing – like my novel – and focus solely on that. Some people can attend to many different tasks in the one day. Others like the variety but I think I write best when I am totally focussed on the one task. I tend to be more productive that way.
Good writing.
Updating my blogs
Over Easter I’m having a short break from writing my novel. This weekend I’ve concentrating on writing numerous posts for my various blogs (see the links on the sidebar). I’m writing these now and dating them to appear on a daily basis for the next few weeks. I often do this as it helps me with my writing.
Once Easter is over I will be very busy on two other projects: finishing the final draft of my novel and preparing to present four sessions at our church camp. I won’t have much time for blogging so I like to get the posts written and have them appearing regularly without having to bother about them. I often do this when I know I’m going to be away for a length of time, especially those times when I might only have limited internet access, for example, when travelling.
There is another benefit. Writing a dozen or more blog posts in one day builds momentum, and before I know it I’ve written five or ten or more. You get in the groove and get very productive. I like that. You can do the same with writing a novel, editing some stories or doing that horrible administrative stuff that writers have to attend to from time to time – like submitting work to publishers.
Must get back to blogging.
Good writing.