Luke Devenish – Emerging Writers Festival, 7 Enviable Lines

Luke Devenish – Emerging Writers Festival, 7 Enviable Lines

Comments 0 Comment

Five skilled wordsmiths, each providing seven gems of knowledge at the Emerging Writers Festival. Luke Devenish was the second to speak. Ambassador Devenish witty, charming and, as is appropriate for a screenplay writer, does good punchy dialogue. He’s a novelist, coming from the land of TV and the stage. He also teaches for AFTRS and has got me seriously considering going back to school. He too has a website. Here’s my paraphrasing of his enviable lines.

  • I wish somebody had told me not to believe my own PR. Don’t get a hyped up, bloated ego head.
  • I wish somebody had told me the importance of doing more than clever dialogue. To start with I was just a dialogue monkey (ed: Luke didn’t say monkey, Liz just likes to say monkey). Good story takes you to the next level and writing for TV forces you to be a story machine.
  • I wish somebody had told me the real deal about agents – you don’t need to have them to get published.
  • I wish somebody had told me to keep my gorram mouth open. You must learn how to talk about your work and promote your work. It is a skill you can learn and get better at with practice.
  • It pays to be multi-skilled
  • It is impossible to have a career without spelling and punctuation
  • There is no shame in the lowest common denominator. Next to my computer I have two words SEX and DEATH.
  • Just do it

Tomorrow, Ambassador Rachel Hills.

Pooja Mittal – Emerging Writers Festival 7 Enviable Lines

Pooja Mittal – Emerging Writers Festival 7 Enviable Lines

Comments 0 Comment

Five skilled wordsmiths, each providing seven gems of knowledge. That’s how the Town Hall program at the Emerging Writers Festival (EWF) is kicked off. The Ambassador Program at the Emerging Writers Festival (or #ewf on twitter) quite simply rocks. The Ambassador’s role is to be available, be ready to have their head picked, brain meats fossicked and have curly questions thrown at them. It sets a wonderful atmosphere of availability and open conversation for the rest of the festival. I hope other writers festivals go for this kind of thing. It’s a wonderful, wonderful program.

Ambassador Pooja Mittal, poet and geek girl was the first to speak and share the seven things that she learned/wished people had told her. Pooja has a lovely fresh voice, crisp intelligent language and a blog. Here are my imperfect notes and interpretations:

  • There is no Ivory Tower. Find community, it will help you create, it is important
  • All criticisms are constructive. If it’s true and hurts it’s because they’ve found you out. If it has absolutely no grain of truth (and make sure you look)… well then it isn’t a crit.
  • Conserve your syllables – it’s a useful tool to help you show not tell. Make sure every sound serves a function and has elegance.
  • A writer’s block is just a block in the road, it is no the end of the road. Fallow fields, dry seasons allow the soil to rest.
  • Inspiration doesn’t strike, it surrounds
  • Change is natural, don’t pigeonhole yourself. Explore different media and different forms. Most creators create in more than one way.
  • Give no excuses for your writing – don’t explain what you’re trying to do. Do.

Tomorrow I’ll post Ambassador Luke Devenish’s lines (novelist and highly experienced screenplay writer).

Comikaze this weekend – 24 hour comics challenge

Comikaze this weekend – 24 hour comics challenge

Comments 0 Comment

Make comics. Make comics fast. Make comics with good company (virtual or there may be physical outposts in your area). Make comics with people encouraging you every step of the way, with inspiring artwork and stories popping up around you and people laughing, going mad with sugar rushes, not sleeping or having a nice nap.

Make a comic over 8 pages and be eligible for prizes (people’s choice, probably only Aussie residents for prizes).

Make a comic 24 pages or over and be eligible for a Nintendo Wii Console plus 3 games (Judge’s choice).

Make comics this Queens Birthday long weekend.

Going off previous years there will be people participating that have never made comics before and there will be seasoned veterans…. I won’t be making comics, I get to look at them later as one of the judges and I can tell you now everyone who gives it a go is awesome, rockin’ and has my admiration.

Go to the Comicaze Website , register, participate and have an amazing time.

Message ends.

5am Melbourne – After the Emerging Writers Festival

5am Melbourne – After the Emerging Writers Festival

Comments 0 Comment

The Emerging Writers Festival is over. I had a rocking good time. Met some lovely people. Had the brain juices stimulated, challenged, soothed and had some of my wackier ideas encouraged! Beware.

As always, I didn’t attend most of the panels I intended to go to. Instead I wandered from interesting thing to interesting thing and like a jellyfish followed the currents that found me. There were times when I was juiced up on the best drug of all (ideas), mind and mouth rambling and brain sparking off in all directions from good company.

There were some times when I was asked some really hard questions about my own work, discovered some deep emotions and subtext to my graphic novel script that I had never realised. I felt confused, sad, struggling, lost and around my own writing – going back to my hotel with a laptop full of mud… And built a bridge, got over it and wrote important words. There is still some difficult work to be done (and dusted before Clarion), but I’ve made an important breakthrough… now I just have to hold on to it.

If I do something with 10% of the ideas I’ve had at the festival it shall be a good year. I got up at 5am this morning, with three articles bubbling in my head. Dragging myself up before the morning light I ignored those concepts completely and wrote a comic script instead. I thought it would be a good fun fluff piece (if slightly disturbing) for Tango’s new anthology Love and War. But as I wrote it, dammit, I realised it had a deep and meaningful subtext directly relevant to the theme of the anthology. Ben Hutchings would be the perfect artist for it if he’s available and willing. The working title of the comic? Love and Spandex.

Numbers, Ankles and Visas

Numbers, Ankles and Visas

Comments 4 comments

It’s been a full few weeks. Here’s a little by the numbers.

  • 6 whole days until I leave Canberra
  • 4 whole days to pack up most of the house and prepare an awesome farewell
  • 3 torn ligaments in my right ankle
  • 3 visits to the physiotherapist and 1 ankle brace
  • 1 set of x-rays showing no bones broken
  • 2 Visas, one for Mike(y), one for me. America here we come!
  • 1 night of rockband, singstar and pata pata pata pon until 3am with friends
  • 1 night of Eurovision and friends
  • boundless, the sensation of blessedness around the good people I have in my life.

And here’s a picture of my bruised ankle from a few days ago. Since then the migration of bruising to my toes has contined in a black textured manner, the swelling has gone down further and the bruising over the ankle has faded. This happened shortly after my last post on accident prone lizness… the pen really is mightier than the sword. Owwww!

Lizs purple bruised ankle
Liz's purple bruised ankle

Technorati Tags:
,

Little liz – the accident prone years

Little liz – the accident prone years

Comments 0 Comment

… no the accident prone years would mean just about any year. I am writing this with a strapped finger after getting a deep slash in my finger while examining suitcases.

I wrote up this anecdote to share with my Co-Clarionaters, we’re getting to know each other and Mr Nicholas Bede Stenner suggested we share funny (which to me means embarrassing) stories. I shall share it with you as well.

The scene. Midnight, an eight year old Liz is cutting up a chocolate syrup bottle with stanley knife (box cutter). The plastic is really hard and I am tired and impatient and get careless. The stanley knife suddenly swishes really smoothly through plastic and over one of my fingers.

There’s a lot of blood. Everyone is sleeping and I know I shouldn’t be up and I don’t want to bother anyone and I don’t want to get into trouble so I stifle any kind of sound and try to apply first aid.

My parents, woken by random sounds and movements late at night find a bathroom with blood splats and a messy pile of bandaids that keep floating off.

My parents say “What’s going on?” with some urgency.

I hide my hand behind my back and say “nothing” convinced I am going to be in the biggest trouble ever for being so stupid with a knife.

I don’t get into trouble at all and am whisked off to hospital where I get a tetanus shot, many local anesthetic injections and get two stitches. I watch with fascination as the thread passes through my flesh and somewhere in the back of my head I’m thinking “Wow this will make a great story.”

I’m particularly pleased that I will remember this as I’m still cross that I don’t remember breaking my leg when I was three ’cause that was really cool and my leg bent at a funny angle. It’s very unfair I don’t remember breaking my leg especially because my brother says that when you break a limb it heals to be stronger and so my chances of ever having a broken leg again have been reduced by 50%.

I get a day off school to recover and I traumatise my little sister for years and years with slow graphic descriptions of watching needle and thread go through flesh.

Even at eight everything was material to observe and absorb to use for later and my technique for any kind of trauma or scary thing is “this will be useful material”.

Wonderful scholarship news

Wonderful scholarship news

Comments 5 comments

I just got some great news from the good people at Clarion. I have received some scholarship support from the following organisations/groups/foundations:

  • Walter and Marjorie Farrell Scholarship
  • The Farrell Scholarship in Honor of Tina Spell
  • IBM
  • Clarion Foundation and UCSD Knight/Wilhelm Endowed scholarships

You can find out more about the scholarships on the Clarion Sponsorship page.

I feel honoured that they’ve deemed me worthy. Excuse me while I do a happy dance.

I feel so fortunate, going to Clarion is a scary financial commitment, especially on the variable wages of a freelancer. Since my acceptance the Australian dollar has rallied and improved, saving me a considerable amount of money. I have sold my car for a good price and earlier than I thought (saving money on servicing and insurance, not to mention parking and petrol as I have no choice but to walk, bus or car pool). I have got several chunky projects that have also helped to bring in the dollars as well as give me amazing life experiences and see more of Australia before leaving my homeland.

The life of a freelancer can be financially precarious and as a person of relatively modest spending (or at least no regular expensive habits) one of the psychologically difficult things about shifting to a freelancer has been the struggle to save money. I discovered how much of my self esteem is tied into being able to put a little away each fortnight and being able to pay off debt quickly. Now the struggle is more epic, clawing ahead, then taken out by unexpected bills and the grind of a morgage, a quiet spell or some surgery. The joy of money and the sorrow of payments more profound, it reminds me of being a uni student.

The scholarships do not pay for all of my tuition, but it makes such a difference. I can feel my mind expanding, knowing that I have more savings to cushion me during the ups and downs of a freelancers life. A few more dollars to support my ongoing creative development and the scary adventure of living in a new country.

I am filled with gratitude.

Travel Plans of Liz & Mikey

Travel Plans of Liz & Mikey

Comments 0 Comment

Hello all here are our travel plans for the next few months, not many weeks until we are flying to Portland.

Wednesday 8 April: Liz and Mikey drive to Melbourne
Sunday 12 April: Liz and Mikey drive home to Canberra
Monday 13 April: Liz has one day at the National Folk Festival
Tuesday 14 April: Mystery trip. Mikey is taking Liz somewhere, hopefully not to be left in the woods because she keeps chewing the furniture.
Monday 25 May: Liz flies down to Melbourne. She will be a panelist at the Emerging Writers Festival on the weekend of the 29th. Mikey will drive down sometime later.
Monday 8 June: Liz and Mikey fly to Los Angeles
We will stay in LA for 1 week-10 days, then fly to Portland
June 28 – August 8, 2009 – Clarion Writers Workshop.
It is likely that I will only have time to go to Comicon for 1 day.

We will also be going to Sydney sometime before we leave.
We will be hosting a farewell sometime at our place in Canberra
We will be doing a farewell type thing in Melbourne as well (we plan to take over some type of space for a day, other suggestions, plans schemes welcome).

Clarion call – the workshop that will eat Liz in June and July

Clarion call – the workshop that will eat Liz in June and July

Comments 4 comments

At last I am able to speak those jewelled words, “I have been accepted and am going to Clarion.” We were asked to stay mum and keep our itching fingers away from the keyboard until everything was finalised.

What does this mean? Clarion is an amazing 6 week writers’ workshop. There’s Clarion South, Clarion West and the original Clarion (originally in the East and now in the significantly less East location of San Diego, University of California). I’ll be going to Clarion at UCSD, where I shall be taught by amazing authors, critiqued by amazing Co-Clarionators (my official word for classmates) as well as hone my own art of critiquing. I’m also excited about staying in a dorm at a college, not something I had during my own university experience (which involved a lot more time at home feeding chickens).

I have heard so many good things about Clarion and chatted to good people who rave about the Clarion experience. It is a workshop you can only do once, so this year it is my once in a lifetime opportunity.

You can see more information at the Clarion Website, but swiftly said, my tutors will be Holly Black, Larissa Lai, Robert Crais, Kim Stanley Robinson, Elizabeth Hand, and Paul Park.

My co-clarionators will be:

Heather Albano
Mishell Baker
Stacie Brown
Katie Crumpton
Nicolas Dayton
Edward Gauvin
Grady Hendrix
Tanner Jupin
Nina Kuruvilla
Matthew London
Patrick Nolan
Leonard Pung
Shauna Roberts
Kenneth Schneyer
Eric Schultz
Nicholas Stenner
Nicole Taylor

Some of us have already found each other on facebook and twitter and we have a members only blog where we’re getting to know each other as well. They seem like a really interesting and diverse crowd with a lot of love for the craft.

Drawing Monsters Competition

Drawing Monsters Competition

Comments 0 Comment

The lovely Anne-Marie, Director of the ACT Writers Centre passed on to me this competition info from Murdoch books:

Murdoch Books is on the hunt for an unpublished, funky new illustrator for an upcoming children’s title! $10,000 cash prize, plus naming rights on the cover… see PDF

The only downside is you have to design 3 monsters, and if you win you have to design even more. Who would want to do that?

… I expect at least half the people I know to apply.

MMM Entry Form