Escape the winter blues and reboot your writing mojo at RELAX AND WRITE IN PARADISE 2023. Immerse yourself in the beauty of the island’s many secluded beaches, reignite your creative self, indulge your inner writer and learn from one of Australia’s most experienced writing teachers (yes, that’s me 🙂 )
Connect with other writing women and write up a storm!
Is your creative spirit crying out for a little TLC? Come along and regain your love of writing and life at the nextRelax and Write Retreaton Magnetic Island in tropical Far North QueenslandatAmaroo on Mandalay.
From FRIDAY 2 JUNE – SUNDAY 4 JUNE 2023
Join like-minded women in a fun and supportive environment discovering just how much some deep relaxation can ignite your…
Every writer knows the first draft is only a small part of the work involved in bringing a story to publishable standard. As Ernest Hemingway once famously said, “All first drafts are crap!” (I may be paraphrasing a little :)).
So how do we take a crappy first draft to something publishers are going to fight over? Rewriting! Or if we’re lucky just redrafting – though let’s face it if you’re a pantster like I was, you may have to write whole new sections. Twice I’ve cut back first drafts of 100 000+ words to 30 000 then rewrote the rest!
Ernest Hemingway – redrafting?
How do you self-edit?
The first step of any rewrite is the structural edit.
This looks at how the main elements of our story are working: characters, setting, voice, genre-expectations and plot. Mainly plot!
The best place to start is with a scene list – not just chapter headings but a list of every scene within every chapter. Include which characters are involved, where it’s set, what’s happening (clue – if nothing’s happening – cut now!) and the main focus of the scene, plus whether the scene is moving us towards Hope or Fear. Go through the whole manuscript and you’ll come up with a list of potentially hundreds of scenes.
Once you have this list it’s much easier to see any repetition, or worst of all, completely unnecessary scenes that are neither developing or illustrating character or moving the plot forward. This is when we press DELETE. Or, for chickens like me, this is when we cut these scenes and paste them into another document called “Good bits I may use later.” I have a few of these documents now for various projects and mostly they remain unused, but occasionally I’ll go back in and pull out a section that has become relevant again.
Your scene list will show you where your story starts to sink in the middle or if a character who was pivotal in the first half fades away in the second. You’ll be able to tell if a character is suddenly acting completely differently to who they were earlier, of if they have taken up too much page space – this often happens when we just go with the flow and let bossy or forceful characters have their way.
Oh yes, those bossy characters may kick up a stink.
A scene list makes it easier to find any plot holes or if you’re building enough suspense or just having characters repeat themselves over and over without growth or change.
What tricks do you have up your sleeve to help you tackle the dreaded, but actually fun, second draft?
Have you got a project nearing the stage when it needs a proper evaluation and an objective rethink?
Writers hard at work on their redrafts at the last Second Draft retreat!
If so, come along and join us at Springbrook in the rainforest covered mountains behind the Gold Coast in Queensland for a cosy winter SECOND DRAFT RETREAT – AUGUST 12 – 14.
Come and join the fun!
This special retreat, for women and non-binary writers with a project needing attention, has workshops to help you tackle the second draft, focusing on finding the heart of your story, distilling the themes, the structural edit, and plenty of tips to help with line editing and pitch documents too.
All in a stunning location with cosy single rooms with desks, beauty and peace, like-minded folk to share your story with in feedback groups, fantastic food and lots of fun.
The second draft needn’t be a scary or lonely experience. Come along on retreat, connect with other writers, and get a head start on the next stage of your project.
What tips do you have for tackling the second draft (or third fourth or hundredth for that matter!).
Hope you can make it to retreat – we always have a wonderful time
The first few pages of your book, or the first few paragraphs of a short story, have a heavy load to bear. These are the pages that make or break your chances with publishers or competition judges and, most importantly, readers. It’s best not to think about it too much when you’re doing a first draft. Just start writing and then, later, once you’ve written all the way to the end, you can figure out the best place to start and whether it’s working well.
1.HOOK THE READER! Something in those first pages must intrigue the reader and compel them to continue turning the page. But how? SET UP A QUESTION. You can engage a reader with your beautiful prose but really, most of us just want to get our teeth into a riveting story that…
Is your creative spirit crying out for a little TLC? Always wanted to write but don’t know where to start? Need to reboot your writing mojo and be inspired to tackle that project you’ve been thinking about forever? Come along and regain your love of writing and life at the next Relax and Write Retreat among the beautiful big trees.
From 3pm FRIDAY 22 October – 2 pm 24 October 2021
Join like-minded women in a fun and supportive environment discovering just how much some deep relaxation can ignite your imagination and get you writing again. Relax and unwind with gentle morning yoga sessions and get writing with innovative workshops designed to help move those stories out of your head and onto the page.
Structure is the primary concern of the writer, how to order all the key emotional plot points to keep the reader turning pages.
A memoir is not an autobiography. Unfortunately, unless you are a sportsperson, politician, musician, or movie star, no one cares about where you were born or your ancestral history, how your parents met, and what you did in grade three. Unless, of course, this is of itself interesting enough to be a story. A memoir is a slice of your whole life, focused around a topic, an idea or theme, a specific time, or linked moments that resonate around a search or question of some kind.
Here are 6 STEPS to help you find your structure.
NARROW THE FOCUS
When shaping your memoir, it helps to narrow the focus as much as possible – not justMy Journey to Healing, butMy Struggle with Addiction from…
A wonderful weekend was had by all at the latest Relax and Write Retreat in Springbrook on the Gold Coast hinterland. From our retreat nestled in the rainforest, it was only a short walk to a spectacular lookout that made the rest of the busy world drop away.
A fascinating group of women, aged from 23 to 83, gathered together to write, do yoga, feast and have fun, sharing wisdom and kindness. I am always inspired and uplifted by the magic of women coming together. These retreats are only as special as the women who come along, and this one was very special indeed.
The highlight for me was our glorious Jacqui and her Exotic Dance performance. Jacqui performed in an international revue in the late 70s and in eh 80s performed with Joe Cocker onstage and even for the Harlem Globetrotters. She taught us all that sexy is sexy…
Greetings from paradise! I’ve been having a wonderful time on Magnetic Island with my magical mermaid retreaters over the weekend.
Eight wonderful women writers in a beautiful location. Yoga in the mornings. Writing workshops through the day and lots of feasting and fun in between.
The sun came out for us, and we made the most of it with outdoor sessions and a picnic. Warm enough to swim.
Magda had us all entertained with tales from a life in shearing sheds, Kerstin shared parts of her memoir in process, young talents Bianca and Eliza wowed us with their writing, Julie rugged up and had a great time remembering she loved to write, Annie had us all laughing, and Sitara our tree-warrior made us think about how important our leafy friends are. Poor Antoinette came down with a dreadful tummy bug but luckily was back in action…
Henry Handel Richardson – Ethel Robertson author of The Getting of Wisdom, Maurice Guest and The Fortunes of Richard Mahoney
I’ve just finished reading Henry Handel (or as I like to call her Ettie) Richardson’s memoir, Myself When Young.
I’ve been a fussy reader lately, picking up the latest literary best sellers, then putting them down again, unfinished. This though, I read all the way to the end.
Even though H.H. died before she’d completed the manuscript, her notes and her husband’s jottings were used to flesh out the final section. I found it a fascinating read, not only because it gave us a woman’s perspective of Australia in the late 19th century, but also because her writing is such a pleasure to read. Clean and clear. Her voice carried me through, even without a plot driving the story forward. Even though she was writing almost one hundred years ago.
Her life wasn’t easy. Her father died young and the family struggled, despite their middle-class privilege. But she knew this:
“To a writer, experience was the only thing that really mattered. Hard and bitter as it might seem, it was to be welcomed rather than shrunk from, reckoned as a gain and not a loss.”
H. H. Richardson
I’ve been telling myself and my writing students the same thing for a long time now. As creative artists, all the shitty stuff that happens to us has value. It is the gold we mine for our stories. And a wonderful way to find a way to be grateful for the traumas in our life.
EVERYTHING IS MATERIAL!
Every experience is be relished. Treasured even, no matter how painful. Because it all increases our depth of understanding of the human experience and that is what writers need, more than any fancy turn of phrase, or fast-paced plot. Because we write to make sense of what it is to live in the world, of what is is to live a human life.
The more we live, in all the pain and muck and glory, the better our writing will be.
Thank you, dear Ettie, for your words and for your wisdom.
WOOHOO! Well that last retreat was just about the best fun you can have in the woods. As usual, the magic of a group of women coming together began as soon as we arrived, with everyone chipping in to help set up and show newbies around. My favourite moment from the first night was when, after the first pair of writers who’d met at a previous retreat introduced each other as “my friend”, the rest of the group did exactly the same. Even people who’d only just met fifteen minutes earlier. So right from the start we were a group of friends.
Workshops in the hall
Our bunk bed cubby houses worked perfectly and everyone had plenty of room to spread out and much needed privacy. Not that most of us spent much time sleeping.
I’ve never seen such a group of avid writers, staying up into…
RELAX AND WRITE 