Words You Are Proud Of

Have you ever gone over something you've written and said to yourself, wow, did I write that? But it's so good! 

It could have been one sentence, or a couple of words of dialogue that suited your character perfectly. It could have been a few lines, or a whole paragraph. Or maybe you were blown away by a whole piece that you wrote and didn't realise the awesomeness of at the time.

I was reading through some of my writing from last year and I came across the piece that was published in the Imagine 2013 journal by my university and I found a few lines that I realised I really loved.

"Why did we choose this life?" she whispers over the conundrum of waves and wind and rain. Her eyes rest on the sky, unfocused.

"Because we were more afraid of death than we were of eternity."

"I hate eternity."

Of course, it sounds way cooler in context. I don't know why, I am just really proud of those few lines.

Anyone care to share a line or two of something you wrote that you're really proud of? 

- Bonnee.

Imagine 2013

A group of writers from one of the other Deakin campuses runs an online journal called Imagine. After receiving a good mark for my final assessment for Writing Craft last trimester, I decided I'd polish the piece a little more and submit it. I'm glad I took the opportunity, because it paid off. My story can now be read as a part of the Imagine online journal on the Deakin University website.

I'm pretty excited by this.

I'd also like to give a huge shout-out to my friend Sarah, who had seven of her photographs published in the online journal as well:
http://www.deakin.edu.au/arts-ed/imagine/2013/sarah-bilotta1.php
http://www.deakin.edu.au/arts-ed/imagine/2013/sarah-bilotta2.php
http://www.deakin.edu.au/arts-ed/imagine/2013/sarah-bilotta3.php
http://www.deakin.edu.au/arts-ed/imagine/2013/sarah-bilotta4.php
http://www.deakin.edu.au/arts-ed/imagine/2013/sarah-bilotta5.php
http://www.deakin.edu.au/arts-ed/imagine/2013/sarah-bilotta6.php
http://www.deakin.edu.au/arts-ed/imagine/2013/sarah-bilotta7.php

I've officially finished all of my classes and assignments for the year and I have just one exam to complete on Monday before I can say I have successfully completed my first year of university. Where did all that time go? Who cares, this year has been amazing.

What has everyone else in the blogosphere been up to? 
- Bonnee.

Deakin 'Wordly'

The Deakin Writers Club magazine Wordly is now officially being sponsored by the Deakin University Students Association and we are now a cross-campus magazine, meaning that we are accepting work from not just the Melbourne campus but the other four campuses too. The August edition is the coolest yet, with no theme, more content than usual and a student-designed cover (previous editions were more like newsletters with little to no colour and no cover.) Oh, and they published a poem I wrote. That is pretty cool too.

I'm super excited for the September edition. The new theme is 'space' (any definition and interpretation of the word is acceptable) and I got a little ahead of myself the other night and prepared a piece for submission. I'm surprisingly pleased with what I came up with and shocked at how out-there it is. Fingers crossed that the Wordly production team like it enough to give it a spot in the next edition. I've already asked one of my friends to take a look over it and offer some constructive criticism and hopefully I can convince some other people to help me workshop.

Speaking of workshopping, it was my turn to present a partial draft of my Writing Spaces assignment in a tutorial. Overall, good feedback (from fellow students... the Dreadful One has continued to be severely disagreeble, but due to the lack of guidance we were given for the assignment, I'm going to have to completely re-write my piece if I want to get a good mark from her). Despite all that, I've really loved being in a workshopping environment again.

On that note, I'm considering getting a workshopping group started on res just for the fun of it. The Deakin Writers Club sometimes organises workshops for members across the campus as a whole, but they are not run often and I think it would be a good chance to meet some of the writers I actually live with and build a bit of a community. Of course, I have to get my head around organising my time and assignments first. I've been extremely lazy this trimester and all of my due dates are suddenly around the corner and I've got nothing done... and hardly anything started! So, assignments first, and then I'll see about arranging resident workshops. I'm a little excited to get socialising with some new Aussie writers... and of course the international students are welcome too!

Aussie writers... that reminds me! Melbourne Writers Festival starts today and I'll be attending at least one event tomorrow as a part of my journalism assignment, and hopefully I'll get a chance to attend a few more over the next couple of weeks. Also, my friend EJ has started a new blog, in which she'll probably post about writing and life in general here in Australia, so go and check her out. I'm currently trying to con her into doing a guest post here on my blog, so go and pester her about that too!

This post ended up being a couple of paragraphs longer than I was intending, so I'm going to leave it there and get started on my assignments. Or continue procrastinating elsewhere.

Any news from my writerly friends out there on their latest progress? Who's been workshopping recently? Anyone going to the Melbourne Writers Festival? 

- Bonnee.

Article Published: The Golden Vanguard

A co-founder of The Golden Vanguard, a news and entertainment online publication, contacted me last week asking if I would be interested in writing articles for their website. Now, I'm not overly keen on the journalistic side of the writing world, but I felt it would be a great opportunity for me to get involved and do something. So Matt Gannon and I had a little chat and I agreed to give writing articles a shot.

I was sitting there after agreeing to this new adventure, thinking. What the heck do I write an article about? What's interesting? What's quirky? What's fun? And I was thinking about it for a long time. I had a few scraps of an idea and then the next day, sitting on the couch with my laptop, warm sunlight pouring through the window... and I felt happy, sitting there. 

Hmm, I thought. Does sunlight actually have mental health benefits? 

I did a bit of research and sure enough... sunlight really does make people happy! I wrote an article about it and sent it in for consideration. I am proud to say that the article got through and is now published on The Golden Vanguard's website. Go and check it out. 

- Bonnee. 

That Short Story I had Published

Well I eventually got around to emailing the subscriptions manager of SpineOut Online Magazine last week, where my short story 'Walking to the Shop' was published in the March 2012 edition. I had decided it was time that I worked out how to access it, seeing as the link my school had provided me with wasn't working for me.

The link doesn't work because SpineOut only sells subscriptions to schools and libraries, so if your school or local library has a subscription, you might be able to view the full story via them! Although I'm pretty sure this is an Australian publication, so I'm not entirely sure if many schools or libraries outside of Australia will have a subscription.

The subscription manager, Bonnie Maher, was kind enough to attach a document of the page in the magazine where my short story was featured. I've zoomed in and print screened in the image below to make it a bit easier for you to read what it says:

All I can say is that I'm happy.  :)

- Bonnee.

Apparent Link and the Lucky 7 Game

First of all, this is the link I was given for my short story 'Walking to the Shop', which was recently published in an online magazine (see previous blog entry for more details):  http://digital.spineout.com.au/#folio=5

For some reason, the 5 keeps changing to a 1 when I open the link and I keep getting a message saying 'Undefined'. When I try accessing it through the spineout.com.au site, it comes up with a message saying 'Your session has expired. Please login.' I wouldn't mind so much if there was a login/create account page. If anyone can figure this out for me with some mad computer or hacking skills (or skillz, whichever you dawgs prefer) that would be great :) 

IN OTHER NEWS! I was just reading from Elizabeth Norris's blog where she talks about the Lucky 7 Game, which is apparently going around writer circles at the moment. I thought I'd try it out for myself :) 

What to do: 

1. Go to the seventh or seventy-seventh page of your WIP.
2. Count down seven lines.
3. Copy the seven sentences that follow and post them.
4. Tag seven other authors.  (I don't think there are 7 authors who come to this blog often enough for me to do this part, so whoever wants to try it can try it!) 

This excerpt is from page 7 of Evergreen: A Fallen Star, which I still consider a WIP because it's still being edited. Please note that this passage may be subject to change. 

It was warm inside the Training House. The room they stood in was large and had only a few tables lined up against one of the walls and some chairs stacked beside them. A stone fireplace crackled with life at the far end of the room. The three children walked into the changing rooms at the back of the building where they put their training gear on. Their uniforms were white, but Chihiro’s uniform had a golden insignia of an Evergreen Tree sewn into its back and on its breast, signifying that she was a Master of the Arts, just like Master Yuusan. Her siblings were still only students. The last part of their uniforms were their belts; all black. 

I'll admit now that this was originally one of the passages I liked least, and although I've done lots of work on it (it was a lot longer than this at first) I'm still not 100% satisfied with it. I'd love to hear your opinions here, any criticism is more than welcome. Just to show you what I'm talking about, here is the same passage from the first draft (yes, I still have the first draft which was completed in 2009. What of it?)

It was toasty inside the Training House. The room they stood in was large and had only a few tables lined up against one of the walls and some chairs folded up beside them. A fire place with a safety guard crackled with life at the far end of the room, keeping it warm. There was a door on either side of the back wall, leading into change-rooms. The teenagers and their little sister headed for those doors, Chihiro and Sakura to the left door and Zutto to the right, crossing the smooth wooden floor as they went.
Inside the change-rooms, they all went to their lockers. Chihiro was locker number four. Sakura had the twelfth locker and in the boys change room, Zutto had the ninth. A uniform for each of them was locked inside their locker, shirt and pants of orange with blue collars. Well, Sakura and Zutto had a blue collar, but Chihiro’s collar was golden. A gold collar symbolized that they were Master Students of the Training House – a Master of Kung Fu. Sakura and Zutto were not yet Masters. When they became Masters, they would be presented with a new shirt with a golden collar.
Quickly, the three of them got changed from their day clothes into their uniforms. The last thing they pulled out of their lockers was their belts – all black.

Your thoughts? Which version did YOU like better? What should I still be changing? Would you guys be interested in seeing some more old draft/current draft comparisons like this? Because I might be interested in doing it.

Once again, CRITIQUE PLEASE!

- Bonnee.

Walking to the Shop - PUBLISHED!

So the good news is, I AM OFFICIALLY PUBLISHED!

By this I mean that someone at SpineOut magazine decided that a short story I had submitted to them, 'Walking to the Shop' was good enough to go into the latest edition. I am so excited by this... and it still doesn't quite feel real.

The bad news is, I have been unable to access it. Why? SpineOut is an ONLINE magazine, right? Well...

Let's start at the start. When I went to submit this story, I had to fill out a form, and some of the required information was which school I am from. I submitted this short story some time in December, if my memory serves me right. I hadn't heard back so I'd accepted that it hadn't been good enough. Today - three months later - one of my school teachers walked past me during one of my study periods and said:

Miss D: Hey Bonnee, I just read that story you got published online.

Me: Yeah? Which one? (this is me thinking that she had found my FictionPress or Wattpad account...)

Miss D: Oh the one about the kites and the homeless man.

Me: Wait... WHAT?!

She showed me the email with the link, and opened the link up for me, and there was my name and my story on the latest online edition of SpineOut magazine. I jumped on a computer and tried to access it myself... which failed. I couldn't get to it. So my teacher sent me the link. And it's not working.

So here is the flood of emotions: Overjoyed, because, hey, I just got published, this is brilliant! I want to cry, because I cannot for the life of me access it! And I'll admit I'm a little confused... why didn't they email me to say that they were publishing me? What was the point of asking for my email address in the submission form if they weren't going to use it? I found out through a teacher; they emailed the school. I didn't give them the school's email, I gave them mine... they only had the school's name... hey, I'm not complaining by any means, I'm just confused... and so excited... my head hurts... gah...

If anyone knows how I can access this stuff, please let me know, I want to be able to share a link that works with the world!

Lots of love and I'll let you know if I find access to it myself.
- Bonnee.