Zena Shapter's Blog, page 42

Peeking into the writing space of Tansy Rayner Roberts @tansyrr #WhereWritersWrite

The writing space of Tansy Rayner Roberts.

Who writes here?

Tansy Rayner Roberts

Who’s that?

Tansy Rayner Roberts is the internationally bestselling fantasy author of the Creature Court trilogy and the two urban fantasy novelettes Siren Beat. She also writes crime fiction as Livia Day and is one of the three voices of the Hugo-nominated Galactic Suburbia podcast. Tansy has won an Aurealis Award, four Ditmar Awards, one WSFA Small Press Award and a George Turner Award.

Where can I read more about this fabulous author?

http://tansyrr.com/

Whose writing space can we see tomorrow?

Sean Williams

Want to share a photo of your own writing space?

Pop it onto my Facebook page for all to see! I’ve enabled external posting of photos on my page just for the duration of this blog series.

Peeking into the writing space of Rowena Cory Daniells @rcdaniells #WhereWritersWrite

The writing space of Rowena Cory Daniells.

Who writes here?

Rowena Cory Daniells

Who’s that?

Rowena Cory Daniells is internationally bestselling author of the King Rolen’s Kin trilogy, the Outcast Chronicles and the Fall of Fair Isle trilogy. As RC Daniells, she also wrote the paranormal crime novel The Price of Fame. The Outcase Chronicles have recently been nominated for a Gemmell Legend Award.

Where can I read more about this fabulous author?

http://www.corydaniells.com/

Extra Notes:

Writer confesses to living in Shambles…

In the last year or so, we repainted the backroom (the room we run away to when we want to do something creative), installed tall shelves from Ikea so we could organise our junk and set ourselves up. My Long Suffering Husband creates trailers for books, covers and internal illustrations and I sit at the other end of the room and write. If I find something funny on the web, I email it to him. Then I hear him chuckle. This is the way we communicate. Very sad…

Here (above) is what my desk looks like. Usually when I get up from the chair, one of our cats comes along and claims the chair. If I leave a drawer open, this happens:

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“If I leave a drawer open, this happens…”

And remember how I said we’d bought lovely big shelves to organise the room? Well this is what has happened to the wall behind me…

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“My ‘messy’ office”

What was a wonderfully neat stack of books on shelves, has morphed into precariously stacked boxes of books, along with my husband’s archery equipment. Things are starting to drive me crazy. I’ll have to do a big clean up soon!

Whose writing space can we see tomorrow?

Tansy Raynor Roberts

Want to share a photo of your own writing space?

Pop it onto my Facebook page for all to see! I’ve enabled external posting of photos on my page just for the duration of this blog series.

Peeking into the writing space of Richard Harland #WhereWritersWrite

The comfy writing space of Richard Harland.

Who writes here?

Richard Harland

Who’s that?

Richard Harland is the internationally bestselling author of YA steampunk/Victoriana fantasy novels Worldshaker, Liberator and Song of the Slums, as well as four Wolf Kingdom novels and such cult classics as The Black Crusade and The Vicar of Morbing Vyle. He has won an Aurealis Award, a Golden Aurealis Award, and the Tam Tam Je Bouquine Prize. He has also published over 30 short stories.

Where can I read more about this fabulous author?

http://www.richardharland.net/

Whose writing space can we see tomorrow?

Rowena Cory Daniells

Want to share a photo of your own writing space?

Pop it onto my Facebook page for all to see! I’ve enabled external posting of photos on my page just for the duration of this blog series.

Peeking into the writing space of Ian Irvine @ianirvineauthor #WhereWritersWrite

The writing space of Ian Irvine.

Who writes here?

Ian Irvine

Who’s that?

Ian Irvine is a marine scientist who has developed some of Australia’s national guidelines for the protection of the oceanic environment, and still works in this field. He has written 29 novels, including the internationally bestselling 11-book fantasy sequence The Three Worlds, an eco-thriller trilogy about catastrophic climate change, and 12 books for children and young adults. The first chapter of his latest novel Justice (Book 3 of The Tainted Realm trilogy) is available to read on his website.

Where can I read more about this fabulous author?

http://www.ian-irvine.com

Whose writing space can we see tomorrow?

Richard Harland

Want to share a photo of your own writing space?

Pop it onto my Facebook page for all to see! I’ve enabled external posting of photos on my page just for the duration of this blog series.

Where Writers Write

We all have our favourite places to write. Some of us like comfy couchs and warm fires, others like the local café or park. Most of us also have a desk somewhere, either buried under piles of something or organized and clean.

Me? I have a desk… but I don’t write there. I love it because there are little bits of me scattered all over it – a talking dalek, Doctor Who’s sonic screwdriver and a TARDIS-USB-hub, some roses Hubbie gave me last year now dried and in a fancy jar, a couple of fluffy frogs, a photo of Hubbie and I on a posh boat speeding under the Harbour Bridge, a mosaic tile from Jordon that I use as a coaster… curiously, no photos of the kids (though perhaps other parents can understand why!!). Above my desk is a painting by my Dad and memorabilia from a couple of writing awards. It’s a very me-space and I love it. I do all my rewriting and editing there. Wanna see it? Okay then…

My beautiful desk!

Pressies from Hubbie…

Exterminate… exterminate…

My beautiful desk lives in a study nook at the end of our hallway…

My hallway study nook…

This means I have no door I can close… but at least my lovely bookshelves are there for all to admire…

Bookshelves!

As for actual writing, I like to get away from my desk for that, because my desk comes with a darkly interesting and fast internet connection! So – to create – I put my feet up in the lounge…

No internet to tempt me here!

 

What about other writers, though, where do you suppose they write?

Well, I wanted to find out… so I asked them! Now you get to see too. For every day in August and a bit of September, I’m going to post a photograph of a different author’s desk or writing space. Who in particular?

Well, here’s a list! (NB. photos probably won’t appear alphabetically)

Alan Baxter

Angela Slatter

Bruce Lyman

Cat Sparks

Charlotte Wood

Claire Corbett

Claire Scobie

Dan O’Malley

Deb Kalin

Donna Maree Hanson

Duncan Lay

Felicity Pulman

Fleur McDonald

Graham Storrs

Greg Barron

Ian Irvine

Ian McHugh

Jason Fischer

Jason Nahrung

Joanne Anderton

Kaaron Warren

Karen Miller

Kate Forsyth

Kim Falconer

Kirsten Krauth

Kirsten Tranter

Kirstyn McDermott

Kylie Scott

Lisa L Hannett

Margo Lanagan

Michael Pryor

MJ Hearle

Nansi Kunze

Nicole Murphy

Nina D’Aleo

PM Newton

Pamela Freeman

Patty Jansen

Richard Harland

Rowena Cory Daniells

Sean Williams

Tansy Rayner Roberts

Terry Dowling

Trent Jamieson

Walter Mason

Wow – aren’t we lucky that all these wonderful authors are sharing photos of their writing space with us. Thank you, wonderful authors!

Now… Bring it on, August!!

How to Handle #Rejection – 20 Tips!

A writer-friend asked me the other day how I handle rejection. What a great topic for a blog, I thought!

Over the years, I’ve developed a fantastic set of tactics to handle rejection, so I thought I’d share them with you…

PLEASE NOTE: these tactics don’t always work, but they sure do help!

ALSO: while I use the collective word ‘story’, these tips can apply to short stories, novels, poems, plays, scripts, non-fiction or any other creative writing endeavour. Good luck!

Focus on your progression as a writer. Are you closer to your ‘dream writing lifestyle’ than you were this time last year? If the answer is yes, then this rejection is just a blip. Keep going!
Remember that every story has its rightful home. Once this story has found its home, the rejections you’ve received en route will simply slip into insignificance.
Think about why your story might not have been accepted this time. It could be anything from mismatched themes or personal preference, to economic viability or bad timing. What does your gut say? You may have even received some feedback. By finding something to improve in the story, you’ll give yourself some focus, as well as hope.
Where to next? Before sending off a submission, always know where you’ll be sending that story next should it get rejected. Having a back-up plan before you receive a rejection will soften the blow.
Wine will help. Or beer. Or spirits. But not all at the same time. Alternately is fine. (In moderation of course!)
Tell yourself that you didn’t want to be published there anyway! Find a flaw, a reason, anything to convince yourself that you’re better off without that publisher/backer for your story. In a way, it’s true. If they don’t love your story enough to see past the risk of publishing it, then your story is better off without them. Your story deserves a platform and a backer that will champion it whole-heartedly to the world.
Chocolate helps too. (In moderation of course!)
Re-read your opening paragraph – you’ll be surprised at how good this will make you feel. You’re a good writer. It’s a good story. You just need to keep going. It will find its rightful home!
Consider yourself lucky that your story wasn’t accepted this time, because of course you’re so busy with your current story you wouldn’t have time to deal with the success anyway. In fact, you’re so deep in the world of your next story, that you don’t even have the time to feel bothered by the rejection.
Phone a friend! Publishing industry friends are the best because they know just how hard it is out there.
Socializing with those who know little-to-nothing about your writing career is good too. Take a break from things. It will give you some perspective.
Alternatively, stay away from people! Sometimes when you want to offload your problems by talking them through, people run a mile. That will only make you feel worse!
Play some good music. Uplifting tracks will make you feel invincible. Alternatively, play miserable music and wallow in it for a while. Once you’re bored of being miserable, you’ll feel ready to tackle the submission process again.
Keep in mind that there are more important things in life than the acceptance of your story. Your health and your family are two of them. Be grateful for what you have of each. Many writers don’t have as much as that. Next week, you might lose some of the good fortune you’re currently taking for granted, then you’ll wish you hadn’t moped over that silly rejection for as long as you did.
Forget that you sent the submission. Obviously keep a record somewhere, but then forget about it. That way, when you receive a rejection, it won’t matter to you!!
Hugs help.
See it as an achievement! The Canberra Speculative Fiction Guild have a competition among members to see who can generate the most rejections in a calendar year. Maybe you could try getting more rejections this year than you did last year? At least that way you can be sure your work gets out there.
Have a cry, or go punch something (whichever suits your personality). Once you’ve cleared out all that negative emotion, you’ll be able to see the rejection from a business perspective. Publishing is a business, so a rejection doesn’t necessarily mean your story is rubbish! Find a publisher who sees your story not as a risk but for the opportunity it presents.
See the rejection as training for once you’re famous. You’ll need a much thicker skin when you’re constantly in the public eye, so the more practice you get now the better.
Chin up and on you go – sometimes it’s that simple. Don’t worry, be happy. It’s them not you. They’re not worth it. Forget about it. Every cloud has a silver lining. The road to success is paved with failure – you’re busy paving yours.

Don’t give up!

Most of all – don’t give up.

Don’t take any rejection personally.

You’ll get there one day!

So just suck it up and move forward.

…Now that’s how you handle rejection! Good luck my friends!

Why run a marathon when you can write for charity? #WABIAD

Last Saturday, at 6.30am, the sky looked like this:

Dawn – Saturday 6th July

How do I know? Because I was getting ready to head into Manly for the KSP Write-a-Book-in-a-Day challenge – all to raise money for charity!

Our team, made up of ten Northern Beaches Writers’ Group members – Leah Boonthanom, Fiona Howland-Rose, Tracey Jackson, Tony McFadden, Liz Michell, Mijmark, Zoya Nojin, Kristin Prescott, Kirsten Taylor and myself – were chilly and tired, but raring to go!

The KSP Write-a-Book-in-a-Day challenge, or #WABIAD, is a nationwide challenge designed to raise money for the children’s hospitals in each state. Based in Manly, our focus is The Kids’ Cancer Project at Westmead Children’s Hospital, a project and hospital close to many of our hearts. So we were all determined to do well.

NBWG members set to attempt the KSP Book-in-a-Day challenge!

At 8am, we received our instructions: to write a book for 11-14yr olds incorporating the following parameters:

Primary character #1: a sculptor

Primary character #2: a cleaner

Non-human character: a dinosaur

Setting: a pub

Issue: ‘over the rainbow’

Five random words: Molten, Scribble, Precarious, Encourage, Curiously.

How we did our plotting

 

Now… try writing a kids’ book (involving a dinosaur) set in a pub!

We were certainly facing a challenge. I guess that’s why the planning stage took twice as long as it should have done and we were running out of time before we even turned on our laptops!

 

Fuel to speed up a writers’ brain!

Still, once we were writing, there was no noise except for gentle tapping on keyboards. It was beautiful! We wrote over 10,000 words and a damn fine story too.

Then it was all hands on deck for editing, editing, editing. We had to scan in all the illustrations crafted by our skilled illustrators, print out the book and bind it – all before 8pm. I don’t know how we found the time to take some photos, but we did…

Editing

Illustrating

More illustrating

Scanning

Discussions

Binding

Done! Time to send it off. Phew!

I still can’t believe we managed to send off our electronic copy dead on 8pm. Hooray! What an achievement!

So, on behalf of the NBWG team, I’d like to say a big thank you to all of our very generous sponsors, and especially to Australian Doctors International, who allowed us to use their office space on Saturday. Your support has been invaluable!

We loved writing our book “Scribbles in the Dark” and hope the children at Westmead love reading it too. We wanted to write an adventure that would give them something to think about other than why they were in hospital. How fantastic that we got to have so much fun in the process! Here’s the blurb for “Scribbles in the Dark”, which is now on the WABIAD website:

Fourteen year old Callum has long wondered what happened to his father…

Callum has lived with his grandparents above their pub in Australia’s outback since his father disappeared, six years ago. Then the rains came. Along with his foster brother Jake, Callum and his dinosaur sculpture are transported to another world, where questions are answered, and lives changed. Why is Jake scared of the scribbly gumtrees? Who is the mysterious girl? Can they ever return home?

Like Callum and Jake, we had an absolute adventure last Saturday, and can’t wait to repeat the experience next year when the WABIAD challenge runs again…

…even sooner if we can! #WatchThisSpace!

Challenge – completed!

AHWA 2013 short story competition – Winner!

Yay! I won!

A few weeks ago, I found out that I’d won the 2013 Australian Horror Writers’ Association short fiction competition with my short story “Darker”.

Today… I received the trophy. I thought you might like to see it, so here it is!

Yay – I won!!!! Squee!

The judges couldn’t decide between my story and a story written by Alan Baxter, who by my reckoning is Australian horror-writing royalty. So I’m really chuffed that they decided to award us both first place. I’m equally chuffed because Alan is represented by the same literary agency as I am, so it’s like – GO TEAM!

This is my sixth win of a national short fiction competition and I’m grinning from ear to ear because every competition I enter is judged blind, including this one. Merit alone determines the result. Six wins tells me that my writing is being enjoyed by lots of different and various people, who all know their stuff, and that’s my goal as a writer so I’m muchly pleased. Thank you AHWA!!

Also, congratulations to the other writers who achieved a place in the competition – go you!!

The full results are below:

SHORT FICTION CATEGORY

WINNERS:

Zena Shapter “Darker”

Alan Baxter “It’s Always the Children Who Suffer”

HONOURABLE MENTIONS:

Cassandra Newman “Divorce Granted”

Ron Schroer “Lustbader”

Shaun Taylor “Open Windows, Closed Doors”

Noel Osualdini “Skin”

Sam Howard “Wee Willie Winkie”

FLASH FICTION CATEGORY

WINNER:

Tim Hawken “Moonlight Sonata”

HONOURABLE MENTIONS:

Noel Osualdini “Night Escape”

Mark Farrugia “Palatable”

Mike Pieloor “The Itch”

Alan Baxter “Under a Wing and a Prayer”

The three winning stories will be published in Australia’s leading horror fiction magazine Midnight Echo, so you’ll be able to read my story then. I’ll let you know when it comes out!

In the meantime, squee… yay… grin!!! I love my new trophy

Nothing Much… Yet Everything

Nothing much happening this end at the moment. At the same time, a writers’ life can be very interesting – so here’s what I’ve been up to this week.

TEACHING

Last Friday, I taught my Problems in Wonderland: Stories That Matter workshop at Manly Vale Public School. As always, I was amazed by the children’s imaginations – there were mermaids, haunted castles, cities on Jupiter and escaped crocodiles, as well as grandmas falling into fires and school expulsions (I’m telling you, kids’ imaginations are magnificent!!). Here are some photos:

Who knows what a character is…?

Great! Now what’s a ‘well-drawn’ character…?

Oooo, good answer!

You have a question?

Well first of all..

And then you’d…

Finally… kaboom!

And there’s your story. Okay?

LUNCHING

After that, I met with my wonderful literary agent Alex Adsett for lunch…

Ladies Who Lunch!!

CHARITY WORK

Then on Saturday, nine members of my writers’ group, the Northern Beaches Writers’ Group, met up to discuss the logistics of completing the KSP Write-a-Book-in-a-Day challenge next month. We’re attempting the challenge on Saturday 6th July and I can’t wait!!

NBWG members soon to attempt the KSP Book-in-a-Day challenge!

Run by the Katharine Susannah Prichard Writers’ Centre, the Write-a-Book-in-a-Day challenge is designed to raise money for state children’s hospitals. For our group, this is the Westmead Children’s Hospital and, in particular, their Kids Cancer Project.

It’s all for The Kids Cancer Project at Westmead Children’s Hospital.

So, at 8am on Saturday 6th July, we’ll be given a setting, 2 humans, 1 non-human, 1 issue and 5 random words. With that, and that alone, we have to write, then illustrate, print and bind an 8,000-word children’s book, all before 8pm that evening. Wow – can we do it? We’re sure going to try! Because every cent we raise is going to help sick kids. We’d of course love your support so, if you want to make a donation, just go to the official Write-a-Book-in-a-Day website at:

https://www.writeabookinaday.com/index.html

Then select ‘Sponsor a Team’ on the left hand side, followed by ‘The Kids Cancer Project – Westmead (NSW)’. After that all the teams should come up – find ‘Northern Beaches Writers’ Group’ and that feel-good feeling of donating to charity will soon be yours!

WRITING EQUATION

In the course of our writing-strategy discussions, one NBWG member Zoya Nojin (published children’s author) shared the following basic story-writing equation with the group. It’s so succinct, I thought you might like it:

X wants Y because Z but C

Cool, huh?

ARTICLE

Today, my contributor copy of Images arrived (the quarterly newsletter of the Society of Women Writers NSW), wherein there’s an article about the workshop I taught there in April. See page 11!

Winter Edition of ‘Images’
The Society of Women Writers Inc

INTERVIEW

Now this coming Wednesday, I’ve got an interview with The Manly Daily booked in, all about the Book-in-a-Day challenge. So that should be fun. Then…

PHOTO SHOOT

On Thursday, a Manly Daily photographer will be taking photos of the Northern Beaches Writers’ Group to accompany the interview.

AND THEN THERE’S LIFE…

In amongst all that, it’s been my daughter’s sixth birthday, my son and daughter’s annual dance concert, and the guttering on our porch just bust – so it’s just as well I’ve got plenty of freelance work at the moment! Rain, rain, please go away. Your rainbows are pretty, but the mess you’re making on my porch is not!!

Rainbows are great…

Burst gutters are not!

What have you been up to this week?

Genre-Mashing with @WritingNSW

The crowd gathered…

 

Last Thursday night, the NSW Writers’ Centre took their tutors out of their comfort zones and asked them to create a story, mashing together two very different genres.

My challenge was to mash up…

 

…the podium awaited…

 

 

social media

+

fairytales

 

 

Reading out my genre mash!

Oh my!

I was concerned the crowd waiting to hear my story at Books Kinokuniya might not appreciate my genre mash – a fairytale I’ve called ‘Jack and the Interstalk’.

I was the first on stage too…

 

 

But I needn’t have worried!

It was a hit!

 

There were some scary bits in the story, but…

 

George Catsi and Jane Meredith got up too, entertaining the crowd with their self-help romance and fantasy travel guide. Fellow Tweep & Facebooker Robyne Young even invented a new genre: the New Nanna genre!

It was a fantastic night and a great way for the NSW Writers’ Centre to launch their new program of courses.

Thanks for coming along everyone!

…we had heaps of fun racing down that Interstalk!!