My writing week

Hi all,

I am getting over a cold. It didn’t stop me from continuing to write every day, but did stall my attempts to up the word count. I also spent a bit of time re-arranging my novel outline from one of happenings in a semi chronological ordered into structured chapters.

I didn’t read much last week, including the novel I am critiquing.

I have read a few things articles recently which have relevance to previous posts of mine. One of the judges involved in the shortlist for the Booker of Bookers award, said that the Booker should dispense with judges and just have the general public vote on a short list: this is happening in the Booker of Bookers awards, where the public has voted on the internet. I myself would prefer that suitably qualified judges continue to decide the Booker, because they would have read all the books on the short-list.

A writer/publisher, in a newsletter I read, said she has finally finished a book which she spent about an hour a day on – persistence prevails. Meanwhile, Murray Bail just brought out his first novel in ten years. He’s the bloke who wrote Eucalyptus that I think won the Miles Franklin award, it also took ten years to write. Tim Winton took seven years to write his latest novel. Both of these writers did put out a short story collection between novels, but still, they leave me with hope for taking way too long to produce something. Winton said he had many false starts. I would be interested to know how far he got into a novel before scrapping it.

Graham.