Emily Paull

Isn't it funny the way that when you're busy, you long for a free day to do nothing-- then, when that free day comes, often, you can't think of what to do with yourself. There's a particular kind of restlessness that comes with that sudden stopping of momentum. It's similar to the way you still feel like you're bobbing around in the waves, long after you've pulled yourself out of the ocean. October has been a busy month for me, busy for all sorts of reasons, and stressful in many ways too. In the first week of October, I finished my first semester of my Masters. I am now about 1/6th of my way towards becoming a Librarian. Because I would like to get the degree done in 2.5 years instead of 3, I will be doing a unit over the summer as well. So I was looking forward to the last three quarters of October as time to write. But the writing itself has been slow. I expect to cross the 50 000 word mark in The Turning Tide (that's the working title, as for now...

This weekend, short story writers from around Australia descended on Aberdeen Street in Northbridge for the third annual Australian Short Story Festival. The brain child of Margaret River Press and Midnight Sun Publishing, the festival has previously presented the likes of Cate Kennedy, Tony Birch, Ryan O'Neill, Melanie Cheng and many more. This year's festival was opened by David Malouf, who spoke at Gallery Central on Friday night, musing on the nature of creativity, and the interconnectedness of his body of work. He had many pearls of wisdom to share with the audience, such as the idea that the ending to a short story is inevitable, because the groundwork for it has already been laid in the existing words; the idea that you have set up for an ending that you have not even decided on yet is comforting to me, as endings have always been the part of writing that I have struggled with the most! David's generosity in sharing his thoughts with the audience continued into quest...

I wanted to write a post about how to get yourself an agent for your book, but if I'm being really honest, I don't know the first thing about it.  Ask my writer friends.  I bet they're all getting fairly sick of my emails and text messages second guessing myself about query emails and how to follow up when you don't hear back. The weird paradox about writing is the whole time that you're writing your book, you need to strive for self-improvement, and you need to be really humble and absorb as many lessons as you can along the way.  I think this is why a lot of writers are really hard on themselves and set these impossible goals that they later feel terrible for not having met.  (No?  Just me?)  Then, when it actually comes to the whole business of trying to 'sell' your book, you have to do a complete 180 and become like a used car salesman.  See this here book, it's a really beauty, only one owner, complete introvert, pretty much worked on it every n...