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Hi all, Well it's nearly the end of February and I was supposed to be rewriting a novel I wrote the first draft of a few years ago: I'll Just Sit Here and Watch it on My.. . Instead, I have just about finished chapter 26 of Stalking Tigers and there are at least two chapters to go. I have passed 120,000 words so at least there is plenty of scope for cutting when I finally get around to editing it. I often wonder how people get the time or, more appropriately, make the time to write. I read about people writing 2,000 words or more a day. The other day I read a message on an online writing board where someone said he wrote 80,000 words in January (he said it needed heavy editing), and here I am struggling to get 5,000 words out in a week. Well at least I am sticking to the mantra followed by some of these prolific writers in that I am writing every day - I have done so since January one 2008. Stephenie Meyer has numbers 1-6 in the Victorian best seller list this week. Not bad...

Hi all, The end of the first draft of my novel is proving elusive. I had hoped to be finished and submitting it for critiques by now, but I keep on having to extend its length. What were meant to be three short scenes in the final chapter filled up all of chapter 25. I've started chapter 26 and I think there is at least one more chapter after that. At the beginning of chapter 22 I had thought that I had one more chapter to go and about 10,000 words, 14,000 words later I think I still have about 10,000 words to go. I only achieved half of my desired word count last week. After last week's rant blaming the Prime Minister, The Victorian Premier and Rupert Murdoch for my low word count, this week I have the bushfires , weather and Trend's antivirus software to blame. The bushfires kept me listening to the radio and reading the newspapers and their smoke has irritated my eyes and affected my breathing. The weather produced another thunderstorm (again with virtually n...

Sorry to those who have made comments that I have seemed to ignore. I had thought that I had set blogger to notify me everytime someone made a comment, as happens with the myspace version of this blog, but obviously I did something wrong. I think I have rectified the problem.

Hi all, Last week was a lousy week to attempt to be a writer, in Wangaratta anyway. The heat just sweated any desire to be creative; thunderstorms had me switching off my computer; bushfire smoke had my eyes sore and irritated; bushfire threatened power outages also had me switching the computer off; the heat meant I spent more time watering the garden; and news on the bushfires distracted me from writing. It has been 40 degrees or more for about half the days in the past three weeks with the other days being in the mid to high 30's. Last Saturday 46 degrees was, I suspect the hottest day on record here. This is climate change so I, and other Victorians, better get used to it. Victorians have no one else to blame but themselves as we are probably the highest per capita greenhouse gas polluters in the world. Yeah, I am really narky today. Fed up. Angry about a dickhead Premier of Victoria who might now, after all these years of inaction, finally look up the meaning of global war...

Hi all, It must have been so much easier for a writer to spend time writing before they invented the Web. All these bloody distractions at your fingertips, you don't have to move or even switch on something, just with a couple of clicks you're off to myspace or facebook for five hours of networking and playing games, or you're off to check your emails or you're off to do some research on.... I just heard some thunder I think, dark clouds outside, so I better make this a quick post before turning the computer off. I heard last week that just down the road in Benalla a guy's computer was destroyed in a power surge during a storm. I think that same power surge caused the power to flicker in Wang and turn my computer off. So, how was my writing week? Okay, but I still didn't get to 5,000 words. I wrote just over 3,000 of the slow breeding bastards. I finished chapter 24 and then wrote about 1,000 words of notes for the final chapter, so it might be a long one. I...