My Writing Week: Issue 39, year 4

Hi all,

New article on Divine: Men’s Sheds.

If you have always wondered what men get up to at a Men’s Shed, I visited one a couple of weeks ago that resulted in an article for DiVine magazine. 

Fixed Facebook Newsfeed

Anyone who uses facebook would have noticed they have turned the newsfeeds into even more of a popularity contest, with the top section dominated by the top stories. I was annoyed as it made it more work to see what all my friends were up to. So after trying several things like changing the language setting to UK English – this worked for one day – I stumbled on to a solution within the top stories. Here it is:

1. I highlighted lists on the left hand side of my homepage and clicked on the more that appeared.
2. I clicked on create a list.
3. I called my list friends.
4. I clicked on add friends.
5. I then clicked on the pictures of all my thousands and thousands of friends.
6. Now when I log in I make sure I am in the friends’ list newsfeed by clicking on it.  

He/she at the Start of a Sentence.

One writing comment that caught my attention last week said that really good writers only use he or she to start a sentence three to five times a page. Whether this is true I don’t know, but less repetition can’t be bad. So I counted the he/she starts in my latest story. Page one: five (hey, I’m a good writer, just), page two: twelve (damn, let’s change a few), page three: three (no problems there)… I assume the same goes for using I when writing in first person.

David Hick’s Nominated for Literary Award.

I was surprised to read that David Hick’s autobiography, Guantanamo: My Journey was shortlisted for the non-fiction prize in the Queensland Premier's Literary Awards.But I wasn't surprised to hear that it didn’t win. Although it is a compelling book, it is not of outstanding literary merit. It is not badly written for someone who didn’t complete high school. I must post my review of it soon.

DiVine Articles: A Breakdown.

I had a twelve month contract with DiVine that ends in a week. In that time I wrote twelve articles. Both of my sample articles were also used by DiVine. Happily, DiVine and I are keen to continue working together. They pay professional rates, but the catch for all you writers out there is that you have to have a disability and live in Victoria.

The fourteen articles I wrote covered: ebooks, writers with disabilities, disabilities in science fiction, dementia, studying online, gardening, recycling televisions, universal remote controls, the Wangaratta Jazz Festival, cataract surgery, and the Wangaratta Men’s Shed. A diverse range of subjects.

Some of the articles were from personal experience, others from research on the web, others were the result of email interviews, and many involved ringing people and asking them questions. Only one, on the Men’s Shed, was the result of me attending a venue and personally interviewing people. I am setting myself the challenge to interview in person more often, but face-to-face story opportunities are limited in the bush.  

I reckon my best article for DiVine was on writers with disabilities.

My Fiction Writing

I am still editing my short story, which is unfortunately getting bigger – it is now 5,600 words, and I am changing plenty of he/she’s.

Including my writing of the DiVine article, I wrote every day of last week once again.

My writing week: Issue 32, Year 4

Hi all,

Disabilities in Science Fiction.

I have a new article up on Divine about characters with disabilities in science fiction. The ending of the article has changed since its original posting as some emails about last minute revisions went astray.

Rise of the Apes

I saw the prequel to Planet of the Apes on the weekend. I wasn’t expecting it to be very good, especially after Tim Burton’s unneeded remake of the classic original, but it surprised me. It is probably the best science fiction movie since Inception (I know that is not saying much as their have been very few reasonable science fiction movies in the past year or so).

I was expecting the plot to revolve around trained apes revolting, happily the plot was much more original. A scientist’s experiments on apes, with a drug that he hopes will cure brain disorders, has unforeseen consequences (and no, the apes are not let out by a bunch of radical greenies).

The main scientist’s father, played by John Lithgow, has Alzheimer’s. Lithgow’s performance reminded me of some of the sad behaviour of my father who had dementia. If I had seen the movie before I submitted my article about characters with disabilities in science fiction, I would have included him as someone who had an intellectual disability.

The special effects are the best I have seen since District 9. The apes were computer generated and for most of the movie look real. But don’t go to see Rise of the Apes for its special effects, see it for its better than B-grade script.

David Hicks being Ripped Off?

If you haven’t heard, the Commonwealth Director of Public Persecutions has decided to try and take David Hicks’ royalties from his autobiographical Guantanamo: My Journey. I would assume the DPP would also be after any advance Hicks received. I read in the Age that the book has sold 30,000 copies and Hicks has received around $10,000. That works out to be about 33cents a copy. Something is very wrong here. He should have received at least $70,000 at 6-10 percent of the $30 - $50 selling price.

For the record: I have read Guantanamo. It reinforced what I had read in the AGE and seen and heard on the ABC. David Hicks was and never planned to be a terrorist. He never assisted terrorists. He was more a naïve adventurer who became a victim of John Howard’s attempts to appease George W. Bush.

My Writing

I did a bit of writing of a short story.