John McDougall Stuart was one of Australia’s greatest explorers. He was relentless in his quest for a way through the centre of Australia and finding a route to the top end. He led six expeditions , each time pushing himself and his men to the brink of death. He travelled light with minimum provisions and…
That first morning I wrapped a scarf around my neck and lit the stove. I tripped over my shoes on my way to the sink to fill the pot. I looked down at them accusingly, as if anyone but me could have put them there. I looked up after kicking them across the room and that was when I saw him for the first time. I wouldn’t find out until later that he had been there for weeks. Inches away from me as I slept. An arm’s reach as I showered and dressed each morning. He sat with me while I overcooked my eggs and searched the internet for a cat to adopt, each time deciding against it because I could imagine it snowballing into two or three until I became one of those women.
The outside world that day, and every day since I had been living there, was a white swirling mixture of ground and sky. Set against the bright seamless backdrop was the outline of a man. He was fading in and out with each gust of wind, like a Polaroid gone backwards. But I saw him. I saw the tip of one of his pink fingers poking out of a hole in his glove. His hands were up against his mouth which was covered in a thick dark beard and his breath came in a long slow billow of white smoke, like the mouth of a gutter under a frozen street. His hood was pulled up over his head which made his eyes ever brighter in the shadow. I couldn’t tell what color they were, but they seemed to have a reflection inside them like the round outline of a flashbulb in the eye of a magazine model. I didn’t scream. I felt nothing like adrenaline, or dread. Or that feeling when your heart beats so fast it makes you want to throw up. Nothing like that happened. If someone told me that they saw a strange man staring at them through their window I would have expected to hear them say, “And then I screamed and dropped my glass and it shattered and I ran to the phone and dialed 911 and then I ran to my front door and pulled the deadbolt across and then I hid in the bathroom with the door closed and I couldn’t stop shaking.” But I didn’t do any of that. I stood completely still as if someone was holding me there, and I watched as the man I saw so clearly disappeared into the endless white.
Continue reading…
…
It is amazing how quickly and easily manuscripts can become confused, especially with different versions of the same one. If you have more than one copy of a manuscript, make sure they are all well labelled and even dated to ensure mistakes will not happen. There would be nothing worse than sitting for hours, writing or editing, only to find that you have been working on the wrong version. I have a system which I find works quite well:
1. When adding the file name to your original manuscript, make sure you add the word ‘original’ into the title. And then put that copy away if its complete, keep it as a reference. It will also safeguard against any unexpected happenings. Make a new copy to work with and number and/or date it. (I prefer to number it).
…
Its a worry. Spam seems to invade and infiltrate everything, including WordPress. Once one gets a blog up and going, in come the bots and away they go – merrily running along, creating havoc and a lot of hard work to be rid of the rubbish they spew out. Makes you wonder if these people have anything better to do than create problems for others. It appears not. I have found a way around the problem for the time being by using WordPress En Spam. Lets hope it does the trick, or I will have to resort to using a captcha and those can be a little tedious for people who would like to make comments.
…
Many new authors turn themselves inside out trying to work out ‘how’ to have their story flow, write about each character in their turn and how to bring them into the story, kill them off, or keep them all going at the same time. Sometimes, a story can loose its way and the author has to bring it back on track, or not notice anything wrong if they become so embroiled in the drama of events taking place in the story.
Creative writing teacher Mary Caroll Moore is an accomplished author of eleven published books. She has created a video on how to ‘storyboard’ your novel. Mary’s books range from Romance to health, lifestyle to creative writing. Mary makes writing look easy, as though it just flows from beginning to end. But, there is a secret. That secret she shares with the world on her video.
…
Track Changes! Simple words for a simple way to edit your documents. But for those who have no idea where to find Track Changes, let alone use it, that is easier said than done. It’s amazing how many people do not know how to use Track Changes, or have never even heard of it.
For years making changes to any type of document was a nightmare – Back in the typewriter era was the ‘carbon paper’; that was hard work, erasing two, three, four or more copies if a typo was made. Then came the electric typewriter and ‘whiteout’ – which smudged everywhere if it wasn’t properly dry before over-typing the corrected character. After that we arrived at the Word Processor – a little easier as deletions were make easy with backspacing, delete key and over-typing, but still tedious.
Then the arrival of The Computer. Windows 95 followed closely on its heels. The beginning! But, oh, still such a long way to go…
…
Where does it come from? What happens when one suddenly gets a ‘lightbulb’ go on? You can be anywhere, and it can happen at any time – day or night.
Although I am an editor and publisher, spinner and knitter, I have never considered myself a ‘writer’. But there are occasions when inspiration just happens and a whole lot of words will appear in my head, crying out to be documented on paper. Writing for me is a thing of ‘inspiration’ and hopefully, I’ll have pen and paper handy to write it down as once its gone, it never seems to reappear. Or at least, not in the same way. It comes and goes, and usually very fast. One minute its kind of just tumbling out, then next – whooosh, gone. I envy those authors who can just call it up at will, its something that many of us would love to be able to do…
…
ENCOUNTER by Ronelle Smith Ronelle Smith is author of ENCOUNTER, the first book in a series of five about 13-year-old Jonathon Newman-Smith, who is gifted with unusual talents. After reading the book, and being totally enthralled by the adventure, I decided to find out more as to what initiated the story. I will let her…