My Writing Week 2(22)
Hi all,
I spent the weekend at the Emerging Writer's Festival in Melbourne, going to nine panel discussions of varying quality, some were better than I thought they would be while one was a bit disappointing. I learnt a few things, gained some motivation and got some reassurance.
Overall, I got the impression that the quality of your writing and luck are not the most important elements in becoming published, who you know is much more important, although that did not help one of the speakers, Steve Amsterdam. His mother is a literary agent and he spent ten years working at Random House in the US, but he had to wait until he moved to Australia to get published by a small independent. Interestingly, when he got to Australia he did a Master of Creative writing at Melbourne University, which he did not think much of because it concentrated too much on theory. The one good thing about it was that he and some of the other students have continued workshopping each other's work for the past three years. I was not so fortunate with my masters, all the students fled, except for one, after the course.
There where no panels on speculative fiction, with its only mention being from one panelist using the some what out of date compliant that science fiction writers can't write dialogue and their stories are all plot and no characterisation. Perhaps she should read George Turner, China Melville or Neil Gaiman.
I will write more about the individual sessions over the coming weeks. I took heaps of notes in the dingy Melbourne town hall rooms. I hope I can decipher them.
I am half a page off finishing editing chapter four of Stalking Tigers.
I critiqued a story last week, I think it was a good one, but I have no recollection of what it was about. I can usually recall, what I consider to be, great stories years later, although sometimes I remember a story for not so positive reasons, for example, Howard V. Hendrix's wanky verbosity and over referenced writing in Incandescent Bliss.
Graham.
I spent the weekend at the Emerging Writer's Festival in Melbourne, going to nine panel discussions of varying quality, some were better than I thought they would be while one was a bit disappointing. I learnt a few things, gained some motivation and got some reassurance.
Overall, I got the impression that the quality of your writing and luck are not the most important elements in becoming published, who you know is much more important, although that did not help one of the speakers, Steve Amsterdam. His mother is a literary agent and he spent ten years working at Random House in the US, but he had to wait until he moved to Australia to get published by a small independent. Interestingly, when he got to Australia he did a Master of Creative writing at Melbourne University, which he did not think much of because it concentrated too much on theory. The one good thing about it was that he and some of the other students have continued workshopping each other's work for the past three years. I was not so fortunate with my masters, all the students fled, except for one, after the course.
There where no panels on speculative fiction, with its only mention being from one panelist using the some what out of date compliant that science fiction writers can't write dialogue and their stories are all plot and no characterisation. Perhaps she should read George Turner, China Melville or Neil Gaiman.
I will write more about the individual sessions over the coming weeks. I took heaps of notes in the dingy Melbourne town hall rooms. I hope I can decipher them.
I am half a page off finishing editing chapter four of Stalking Tigers.
I critiqued a story last week, I think it was a good one, but I have no recollection of what it was about. I can usually recall, what I consider to be, great stories years later, although sometimes I remember a story for not so positive reasons, for example, Howard V. Hendrix's wanky verbosity and over referenced writing in Incandescent Bliss.
Graham.
Really interesting Graham
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