Free Writing & Publishing Seminars in Melbourne!

Hello my lovelies,

The semester has begun again and as a free extra-bonus-awesome part of my Bachelor of Writing & Publishing, NMIT Fairfield are hosting free (to everyone) seminars with Publishing Professionals.

Last week's one was with Maree McCaskill and Jose Borghino from the Australian Publishers' Association was so incredibly fascinating so I recommend if you're in Melbourne you pop on over to The Chapel in NMIT Fairfield, Yarra Bend Rd Fairfield at Midday on Tuesdays if you can!
There is one in particular I am Squeeing with excitement about - the man who made me want to write in the first place, John Marsden is coming! John Marsden is coming!

Here's what's coming up:

12:00pm-1:00pm 1 March: Dale Campisi, Arcade Publishers
Dale is co-founder and Director of Arcade Publishers, a unique niche publisher that short reads about Australia's past: from eccentric entrepreneur EW Cole and infamous Queen of Harlotry Madame Brussels to comprehensive - if unconventional - histories of Melbourne itself, Aussie pinups and hoaxes across the nation and throughout the ages. Arcade also hosts events based around their publications such as the Mysterious, Marvelous and Historical Melbourne walking tours.

1:00pm-2:30pm Thursday 3 March: Sue Hines, Allen & Unwin
Sue is the Trade Director at Allen & Unwin, Sue started her publishing career at the independant publishing house McPhee Gribble. She was the managing editor during the period that the company was the powerhouse of Australian literary publishing and she worked with a range of fiction and non-fiction writers. She then moved to Reed Books to start their first paperback imprint and later went on to become the company's non-fiction and illustrated publisher, publishing many well-known authors during that time. In 1996 she moved to Allen & Unwin as the publisher of her own imprint and was appointed as trade publishing director in 2005.

12:00pm-1:00pm 8 March: Mary Russell, ANZ Society of Indexers
Mary is the President of the Australian and New Zealand Society of Indexers. Mary will provide an overview of the skills required for different kinds of indexing including Bibliographic and database, Geneological, Georgraphical, Book, Legal, Periodical and newspaper, Pictorial indexing, Subject gateways, Website and metadata indexing. Phew!

3:00pm-4:00pm Thursday 17 March: John Marsden (Squee!!)
John Marsden has won every major writing award in Australia for young people's fiction, including the 2006 Lloyd O'Neil Award for contributions to Australian publishing. He was also nominated for the Astrid Lindgren Memorial Award in 2008, the world's largest children's and youth literature award, and the second largest literature prize in the world. His recent books include Home and Away, Hamlet: A Novel, A Roomful of Magic and the Tomorrow series, the first of which, Tomorrow When the War Began, was adapted for film by Stuart Beattie in 2010. Join John for a fascinating talk about his life, work and life's work.

Phew! That's enough for now, but I'll post again about how Bruce Shearer (Playwright and Senior Training Consultant for LexusNexis) is coming, as well as Cora Kipling (Senior Publicisit for Text Publishing), Helen Cerne (Writer and Manuscript Assessor), Jeff Sparrow (Overland), Lisa Dempster (Emerging Writers' Festival and Vignette Press) and Tim Pegler (Author and Journalist). They. Are. All. Coming.

NMIT Fairfield, Yarra Bend Rd, Fairfield Victoria. Call Adelina Broglio on (03) 9269 1833 for more details.

Sairz out!

eBook, eMag, eNewspaper - What Will Be The Difference?

 In the digital age, it's getting harder and harder to define exactly what a book is.

Is it the physical item you hold, that has a front cover and a back cover and has a satisfying heft to it in your hand? Is it full of wonderful text and in some cases like non-fiction and picture books, illustrations, photography or some sort of artwork?

What makes that different to a magazine then? What makes it different to a newspaper? There is a big difference between physical books, magazines and newspapers, but with eReaders, tablets and the Ipad and all of the above texts so readily available on these devices nowadays, what really does make the difference between a magazines, newspaper or book?


The lines blur as eMagazines are essentially just like eNewspapers, as are illustrated non-fiction books and picture books.

Without the physical item to hold and the difference between a novel, magazine and newspaper made obvious through their shape, texture and feel, perhaps one day, when the print industry has (GRIM PREDICTION ALERT) folded, there won't be such definitions. Perhaps one day everything will just be "a text".

What do you think? Do you think this will be a good thing or a bad thing for the future? The "everything will be just be called a text" part, I mean. Yikes, the end of the print industry is another matter altogether.

Sairz

A few of my favourite things: Musical Theatre

Over on Teen Fiction Cafe this week, Sara Hantz discussed her favourite musicals. I realize I don't really talk about myself other than my writing on here much anymore and my bet is, if you didn't see those posts a year ago about how I spent 5 nights in London and went to the theatre on the West End *cough* 5 times, you probably don't know that I love love love me some musical theatre.

I loved In the Heights so much that I had to see it BOTH TIMES
I was in New York. I'm so psyched for the movie.

So here's my Top 10 List, in no particular order, mind you:

Rent
Seven Brides for Seven Brothers (movie)
Hairspray
Avenue Q
Legally Blond
Grease
In the Heights
West Side Story (movie)
Mamma Mia (movie)
Dirty Dancing

I really wanted to see Fame and Spring Awakening when they were here in Melbourne, but alas.

Checking out my list, it seems I am a modern girl through and through when it comes to musicals. Maybe I haven't been exposed to enough of the classics.

How about you?

To take you out, here's a snippit from Legally Blond: The Musical. A bit manic, but so. Fun.

 

Sairz

Secret Character Stuff

I am revising a manuscript at the moment. I'm making it deeper, the relationships between my characters more meaningful. Giving them a bit more backstory.

I wrote this scene, where my protagonist is rushing to her on-again-off-again best friend's house in the hopes that what just happened, if she can be there for her friend they might just get their friendship back.
As she runs through the neighbourhood dressed only in her cookie monster pajamas, she thinks about fights they had in the past. How as kids my protagonist started spending a lot of time with her dad's colleague's son, EJ. And not as much with her best friend. Her best friend soon had an imaginary friend Liesl who she took great pleasure in listening to and recounting to my protagonist the horrible things Liesl had said about EJ. As soon as EJ moved away, Liesl was forgotten again.

The anecdote was getting too long so I had to cut this part out, so now there is no mention of Liesl the imaginary friend.
But that doesn't mean she doesn't still exist in the history of my story. She may never be mentioned, but I know she was there and she would have had some sort of impact on their friendship.

It feels like a secret I have, shared just between me and them. One day, hopefully, my book will hit the shelves and be read by hundreds or thousands (hopefully thousands) of people and they will feel like they know my characters as well as I do. And maybe they will.

But maybe they won't.

Sairz

Super Cool Dog Stuff

Going a little off topic here, you may or may not know this about me but I'm a crazy dog lover. If there's a dog waiting outside a shop I have to pat it, and yes I'll let you bring your dog inside the shop I work in only if you'll let me pet it. I can't have a dog where I live so when I go and visit my parents, they know and understand that I'm not there to visit them: I'm there to see my dog. And their dog. But my dog mostly.

So when I saw this ad linked on Twitter, I figured other dog lovers will enjoy its awesome as much as I did.

For you:

Sure, I love cats too...but they're evil. For instance, below I have pasted an excerpt of a Dog's Diary versus a Cat's Diary. I first saw this in a chain email  and it's all over the internet so I don't know who exactly to attribute it to. 

Observe the (I must say, pretty accurate) difference between species:

EXCERPTS FROM A DOG'S DIARY

Day number 181
8:00 am - OH BOY! DOG FOOD! MY FAVORITE!
9:30 am - OH BOY! A CAR RIDE! MY FAVORITE!
9:40 am - OH BOY! A WALK! MY FAVORITE!
10:30 am - OH BOY! A CAR RIDE! MY FAVORITE!
11:30 am - OH BOY! DOG FOOD! MY FAVORITE!
12:00 noon - OH BOY! THE KIDS! MY FAVORITE!
1:00 pm - OH BOY! THE YARD! MY FAVORITE!
4:00 pm - OH BOY! THE KIDS! MY FAVORITE!
5:00 PM - OH BOY! DOG FOOD! MY FAVORITE!
5:30 PM - OH BOY! MOM! MY FAVORITE!

Day number 182
8:00 am - OH BOY! DOG FOOD! MY FAVORITE!
9:30 am - OH BOY! A CAR RIDE! MY FAVORITE!
9:40 am - OH BOY! A WALK! MY FAVORITE!

EXCERPTS FROM A CAT'S DIARY

DAY 752 - My captors continue to taunt me with bizarre little dangling objects. They dine lavishly on fresh meat, while I am forced to eat dry cereal. The only thing that keeps me going is the hope of escape, and the mild satisfaction I get from ruining the occasional piece of furniture. Tomorrow I may eat another houseplant.

DAY 761 - Today my attempt to kill my captors by weaving around their feet while they were walking almost succeeded, must try this at the top of the stairs. In an attempt to disgust and repulse these vile oppressors, I once again induced myself to vomit on their favorite chair ... must try this on their bed.

DAY 765 - Decapitated a mouse and brought them the headless body, in attempt to make them aware of what I am capable of, and to try to strike fear into their hearts. They only cooed and condescended about what a good little cat I was...Hmmm. Not working according to plan.

DAY 768 - I am finally aware of how sadistic they are. For no good reason I was chosen for the water torture. This time however it included a burning foamy chemical called "shampoo." What sick minds could invent such a liquid. My only consolation is the piece of thumb still stuck between my teeth.

DAY 771 - There was some sort of gathering of their accomplices. I was placed in solitary throughout the event. However, I could hear the noise and smell the foul odor of the glass tubes they call "beer". More importantly I overheard that my confinement was due to MY power of "allergies." Must learn what this is and how to use it to my advantage.

DAY 774 - I am convinced the other captives are flunkies and maybe snitches. The dog is routinely released and seems more than happy to return. He is obviously a half-wit. The bird on the other hand has got to be an informant, and speaks with them regularly. I am certain he reports my every move. Due to his current placement in the metal room his safety is assured. But I can wait, it is only a matter of time...

So you still love your homicidal cat now that you know its motives?

Sairz

Fiction Musings: Non-threatening but deadly all the same

I bought a micro SD card for my phone today. Yeah, now I am re-joining the technological age and have this thing I can take around with me everywhere with MUSIC on it. Do you guys have something like this? Boggles the mind, doesn't it.

Anyway, I took the 8GB micro SD card from it's packet and really looked at it. It's about the size of my pinkie fingernail.It's about the width of it too. It's incredible that something so small can be so powerful, don't you think?
It's deceptive, and I found this intriguing.

Let's extrapolate this out to writing and characters. It doesn't have to be the six foot five weight lifter who puts on a mean gun show that can be a threat to your protagonist.

He might be physically intimidating but that might be all.

I know a guy who towers over everyone he meets. And if someone gives him a hard time he has no problem with stepping right up in their face and looking down at them. He's physically intimidating. He has also admitted that should someone NOT be intimidated by him, and perhaps throw a punch, he would scream like a little girl and run away because he can't fight. He has to hope it doesn't come to that.

I have another friend who is average height, slim build and completely non-threatening looking. But he is trained in karate and martial arts and could literally kill someone with his bare hands.

People are surprising and our characters should be too.

That's just what I'm thinking. What are your thoughts?

Sairz

Critique Contest Entry! The Kiss Off First Line

To help D4EO agent extraordinaire Weronika Janczuk celebrate her birthday, Brenda Drake of Brenda Drake Writes...under the influence of coffee and Weronika have teamed up and are holding a First Lines contest - the prize is a manuscript critique from Weronika and who DOESN'T want a professional critique?


My finished manuscript is a YA Contemporary called The Kiss Off.


SYNOPSIS

Poppy writes a scathing song, ‘The Kiss Off’ about her ex-boyfriend Cam and ex-good friend Nikki, the boyfriend stealer. She uploads it to YouTube, where it catches the attention of Ty, the lead singer of a local band. With this song, his band skyrockets to the top of the charts and into the public eye, bringing Poppy's emotional dirty laundry with it.

FIRST LINE

‘What rhymes with “douchebag”?’ I asked as one of my best friends Vanya turned knobs and pulled the legs out on the tripod. 


Okay, have at it, contestants and others who have an opinion! 


And Weronika, may I say...

Sairz