I Miss Writing

Whoa, this whole blogging thing still isn't going well for me. It's been more than a month since my last blog post. What have I been up to since then? Not much in the writerly sense of things. My last post was before O'Week at my uni. I just about worked myself to death that week. But running the stall for the Deakin Writers Club was amazing. We got heaps of sign ups and handed out a lot of the O'Week edition of WORDLY. Speaking of: check it out online! We're having some trouble with this online version though--it seems that a few (really good!) pieces towards the end have disappeared for some viewers (though strangely not all) and we aren't sure why this is, and try as we might we haven't been able to fix it, which has been frustrating. But still, look at it! LOOK AT IT! IT'S SO PRETTY! 

I've managed to get together a couple of Deakin Writers Club events. Our first one was 'Lit-Mag Madness!' a couple of weeks into the Trimester, and it went really well! Especially considering I was winging it ... I organised it really last minute, and didn't put out notice for it until three days before it was scheduled ... somehow still ended up with thirty-ish people! It was great. One of the other Deakin Writers executives and I brought along our collection of literary magazines to show off and the whole point of the event was to show the members that there was an abundance of opportunities for them to get their work out there--they just had to know where to look. So I sat there talking at them for 5-10 minutes, just explaining some of the main ones we were showing off ... and then I decided they had to eat the food I brought them and socialise, so I told them to stand up, move around, talk to people and read some lit mags. Never in my life did I think it would work. I think the other executive's threat of making them play an awkward icebreaker game if they didn't start socialising might have given them that extra push, but still! Nek minet, all the writers socialising and talking! It was beautiful! Anyway, it was really fun and I talked to heaps of the members and I think people had a good time--at the very least, they enjoyed the free food, and the TimTams were the first thing to go, so I'll need to bring more of them next time.

I suppose I'll share here a couple of the things I showed the members at the event. First, there's this one page on the Australian Society of Authors website with a list of Australian journals and magazines they could submit to, and links to their information pages: Journals and Magazines.

I also shamelessly advertised Verandah Journal, which is the other magazine I'm on the editing team for, and you guys can submit to this one too, so check it out!

And then one of my lovely editors suggested we should put on a bit of writer-relevant music, which I can't remember whether or not I've shared here before, but here it is anyway. I quite enjoyed it:

That aside, I managed to get another event underway. Deakin Writers joined forces with Deakin TV club to host a script writing class, which we'll be following up with a script writing workshop after the Easter break. The only problem was that when I agreed with the DTV executive team on a date, I didn't have my week planner on me (because I'm an idiot who constantly leaves it at home), so I was relying on the fact that I know my class timetable off by heart and my work rosters get emailed to me. What I didn't take into account was that I'd been given an extra shift after the rosters came out, so a couple of days before the event, I looked at my week planner and realised I was working at the same time this script writing workshop was meant to be happening. Very devastating. We were able to continue running it even though I wasn't going to be there, but I felt so bad for suddenly ditching the team! Note to self: bring week planner, ALWAYS! 

Luckily for me, there was leftover pizza from the event, and the other Deakin Writers executive who worked on the event was waiting for me after work with a box. What a gem. Bloody legend. She even saved me some garlic bread. This is friendship. 

I've done no writing or editing for myself since before the summer holidays end, which I hope to rectify shortly, as we are going on our mid-trimester break next week. I still have work and I still have assignments, but hopefully I'll find time to get something written for the next edition of WORDLY. The theme is 'Freedom of Expression' and I'm really looking forward to all of it because we're working in partnership with Querelle, which is being published by Deakin students this year too! While the Querelle audience will be the queer-identifying community, WORDLY's will be broader, but we're sharing the same theme and the idea is to create some hype for them, especially among the Deakin students. They're great to work with, especially considering half of their editorial committee are either current or previous WORDLY editors, so we already know each other and find it easy to communicate. I'm hoping to contribute to Querelle this year as well, but first I must figure out what to write and then I must find time to write it! HOPEFULLY THESE TWO THINGS WILL HAPPEN THIS WEEK!

In other news, I'm not going to bother touching WALLS until the mid-year break. I don't have time to work consistently on any large projects at the moment and frankly I might actually die if I try to do anymore work at this point (and I haven't even CONSIDERED my assignments yet!). My plan for mid-year break is to dedicate every spare moment I have to editing and rewriting WALLS and then I'll be seeking a beta reader or two (probably people from my course at uni) to look at it over Trimester 2. If all goes according to plan, hopefully they'll have finished looking at it for me by the end of T2 and then I'll have the summer to incorporate whatever edits and suggestions they make and then I'll be able to consider what the next step I'm going to take is. Hopefully, the next step will be sending it to a professional of some description: either a professional manuscript evaluation person from Writers Victoria, or to a literary agent, depending on where I feel the novel is at. And of course, I'll be attempting to do NaNoWriMo again come November. I know that's quite a while ahead, but looking ahead to where I want to be is the only way for me to get through the slush-pile of work and study that I'm stuck in right now. I miss writing and I know I can't make sufficient time for it until then, so I'll patiently look forward to it instead. 

That's all for now. I'll try to be a little more blog-active over the next week for mid-trimester break. Happy Easter to those who celebrate it and Happy International Chocolate Indulgence Day to everybody else. :) 

What are you working on? 

Bonnee.