Newer Posts » « Older Posts 

Blogging can make you a better writer

3 Comments »27th January, 2009; Category: Blogging, Master of Arts course, The Writer's Life

I haven’t written about blogging on this blog about writing for some time now. Of necessity my blogging activity has been rather limited over the last 12 months because of my studies. Getting my Master of Arts in Creative Writing has taken precedence over blogging. Despite that, my three blogs continue to tick along quite nicely.

In the previous 2 years I was blogging daily. In fact, I was almost a full time blogger, which kind of hindered my other writing. Writing an average of one article per blog per day  over two years has had some interesting flow on effects on my general writing.

  1. I am now far more disciplined in my writing life, especially in the amount of writing done each day.
  2. I am far more productive, turning out far more words per day than ever before.
  3. I can write ‘on demand’ and rarely wait for inspiration. The act of writing generates its own inspiration and I can also write a lot faster with fewer mistakes.
  4. Searching for ideas for my writing is no longer a problem, because constant blogging generates a momentum of its own, with one article often generating many more.
  5. My writing skills have vastly improved. One of my lecturers commented many times that she can see that my blog writing has helped my other writing develop too.
  6. I have gained a great deal of satisfaction from the comments of readers and the interaction between readers.

There is no doubt in my mind that blogging can vastly improve your skills as a writer. I’m not the only one who thinks along these lines. Jenny Cromie has written an excellent article as a guest blogger on ProBlogger. It’s worth reading.

Good writing.

Writing Goals for 2009

2 Comments »19th January, 2009; Category: Goal setting, Master of Arts course, The Writer's Life

I believe in setting goals for my writing. This is an important part of a writer’s life – and for almost every other pursuit in life.

Short term, regular Goals

On a regular basis I set daily, weekly, monthly and annual goals for my writing. These include:

  • setting goals for the number of words written
  • setting goals for the number of hours of writing
  • setting goals for inservice training such as attending conferences, workshops, reading and other forms of self education.
  • setting target dates for the submission of manuscripts.
  • setting minimum number of posts on my blogs

Long term goals

Late last year I took some time to map out some longer term goals for my writing career. I set some goals for each year for the next five years. This may seem a long view of things but it helped me to clarify where I am heading with my writing. These goals included such things as the number of publications I would like to accomplish as well as some projected – and hopefully realistic – income goals over the next five years. All these goals are flexible and wil be adapted to suit changing circumstances.

My specific goals for 2009

It is always good to set some specific goals for the immediate future. Some of my goals for this year include:

  • Completing my Master of Arts in Creative Writing – this is well under way with one year to go. I should be finished by this time next year.
  • Writing a 40,000 word novel – this will be my thesis paper for my degree. The novel must be of a publishable standard. That’s my big challenge this year.
  • Submissions to publishers of manuscripts written during my course last year. This includes several picture books, a short novel for young children, dozens of poems and several short stories.
  • Continued posting of articles on my three blogs (see the links in the sidebar).
  • Averaging 1000 words per day for the whole year (up from 700 per day achieved last year).
  • Averaging 5 hours per day on my writing, a target I achieved last year. This might not seem much until you try – to average 5 hours per day I actually had to  do many days over 10 hours to achieve the average. There will always be days when no writing is achieved due to illness, holidays, family responsibilities and so on.

I can see that it will be a busy year – again.

Good writing.

Write what you love

No Comments »13th January, 2009; Category: Books, Quotes, The Writer's Life

“You’ve got to love libraries. You’ve got to love books. You’ve got to love poetry. You’ve got to love  everything about literature. Then, you can pick the one thing you love most and write about it.” Ray Bradbury

I love libraries – all those books on all those different topics, all those wonderful adventures to be enjoyed and pictures to be enjoyed. In fact, I love libraries so much that in another life I was a librarian for about eight years. I loved buying new books for the library – especially seeing it wasn’t my money buying the books!

I love books too. I have a huge collection of books. I can’t bear to get rid of any books. Throwing out  a book is akin to loosing a child. Talking of children, I love visiting my adult children, especially my daughter, so that I can become reacquainted with a part of my library. To be fair, some of her books grace my library shelves – only on a temporary basis of course – until I’ve read them.

I always loved poetry too and I’ve written my fair share of poems, from the slightly ridiculous, to the positively banal and some that are absolutely brilliant (IMHO). This year my skills at writing poetry have had a great boost while doing my Master of Arts in Creative Writing course.

But back to the quote from Bradbury.

Writers must be readers. Read widely and voraciously. Love and cherish books. Get your hands on as many as you can; read, read, read, devouring books in numbers.

Then you can pick the one genre or form or discipline you love most, and then write what you love.

Good reading and writing.

Watch those apostrophes

No Comments »9th January, 2009; Category: Writing Hints

My daughter is a secondary teacher of many years of experience. She sometimes calls herself “The Apostrophe Nazi” and is horrified by the abuse this poor little item of punctuation suffers. She has been known to openly correct the misuse of apostrophes on staff room notice boards, newsletters and other items on public display. She has been sorely tempted to carry a pen with her and correct the abuse of this form of punctuation in public places such as shops.

Imagine her horror a few days ago when I pointed out more errors on a public notice. We were on holidays in the Sydney and went for a day trip to the Blue Mountains. We were buying an afternoon tea treat in a small bakery. I was looking at the public notices in the window. On one of them – only a short notice mind you and I forget the intent of the notice – there were no less than six abuses of the use of the apostrophe.

Aaaaah! Her brain had trouble coping. She didn’t snap – but came close to it.

For further reading on this topic click here.

The poet’s art

No Comments »5th January, 2009; Category: Master of Arts course, Poetry, Quotes

‘The poet’s art must be learned.’ Frances Stillman: The poet’s manual and rhyming dictionary.

  • Poets are born, not made.
  •  Poets are made, not born.

These two statements seem contradictory. I contend that there is an element of truth in both.

I certainly agree that poets need to be born with a certain aptitude for language or they will struggle with the demands of poetry.  Good poets are naturally gifted in this area. Nor has everyone the necessary inspiration to write effective poetry.

At the same time, I acknowledge that competent poets need to have their skills developed. Poetry writing can be taught, or learned, in a systematic way. The technical demands of writing a sonnet, for example, can be taught. Not everyone will be able to write one nor will many write classic sonnets that will last for centuries. Just like I am able to play a basic tune on a piano but I will never be a great concert pianist lauded the world over.

What I have enjoyed and deeply appreciated while studying the writing of poetry during my Master of Arts in Creative Writing course over the last year is the deliberate and systematic methods that have been employed in the teaching of poetry.  We have learned many technical skills that are the building blocks of good poetry. I am starting to master meter and rhyme. I have learned to write sonnets, sestinas and near rhymes, and a host of other skills. Even today my wife commented on how dramatically my poetic style has changed over the last year. The next few years will be exciting as I further develop these skills with regular, deliberate practice.

Good writing.

Newer Posts » « Older Posts