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Bucking a Creative Trend
I don’t like notebooks. (Phew! I’ve wanted to confess that for some time.) It’s not practical or an aesthetic aversion — they can be things of superb utility and immense beauty. I simply hate what they represent — a crutch for the frailty of human memory. The problem with crutches is they can very easily…
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Losing the Desire
Writer’s block is real. I’ll probably cop flak for that, but it’s true. There is a school of thought, and I used to subscribe to this view, that writer’s block is an excuse for lazy writers to not write. I used to think it was something that came about from a lack of imagination, from…
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Fueling the Fires of Inspiration
Where does a writer get inspiration from? I understand this is a very common question asked of authors. I wish I could say a fan asked me this, prompting this very post. But that didn’t happen. I just feel it’s a question I should probably practise answering — just in case, when I am world…
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The Reader’s Instinct
So, I failed to complete short story in time to meet an anthology deadline, in the lead-up to Christmas and New Year. Don’t get me wrong, finishing the story was very achievable. I really liked the characters I created; I relished the predicament I’d dropped them in; I even loved the character arc my protagonist…
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Striving for 2019
With another year of creativity opening up before me, I’d love nothing more than to toil away in complete and utter isolation, heedless of how I fare. But, I understand that it can be healthier to share ones goals in order to achieve some level of accountability for one’s work. So, having posted about my…
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Highs and Lows of 2018
December is, typically, a month of reflection for many. Authors, in particular, seem to like to review the year just gone and see what they’ve achieved. So, what have I done? While I tend to mark my achievements by career milestones — two of which were reached in the year — there were other successes…
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Best Reads of 2018
The end of the calendar year is fast approaching, meaning a spate of authorial gift giving and bookish self-indulgence is just around the corner. So, for the third year running (making it officially a tradition now, I think), I give you my three best reads for the year. A Wizard of Earthsea by Ursula K.…
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Reflections upon 2 Years of Blogging
My name is Matthew, and I’m a blogger. I originally started, while riding the high after a writers convention, with the aim of posting at least once a month for a whole year. And I’ve been at it now, I realised the other day, for more than two. (To be honest, I didn’t think I’d…
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An Introvert’s Learnings from Writers Conventions
I recently returned from another jaunt to the Canberra Speculative Fiction Guild’s annual convention — Conflux 14: The Unconventional Hero. This is the third Conflux I’ve attended now, and as always, I came away feeling reinvigorated about my art and my writing. But given this is the case, why do I always procrastinate and find…
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Advice to Ruin Your Writing Career
There is little more poisonous to a burgeoning writing career than the wrong advice. I was discussing this topic with my writing group the other day. Being regular consumers of indie author books and podcasts, we were perplexed by pieces of advice that didn’t sit right with our collective experiences. I have no doubt the…