We have a new tunnel. It dives under the Brisbane River, linking the south with the north and bypassing the city centre in a most convenient way.
When the tunnel opened, the toll was suspended to allow motorists the opportunity to test drive (and hopefully get hooked on) the new route.
Do you ever get a weird feeling somewhere around the pit of your stomach? I’m talking about something that ranges between an imperceptible tingle and a full-on lurch depending on what triggers it.
“It’s as boring as bat shit,” I muttered, tossing the half-read book onto the couch.
My wife, Jane Teresa, sighed and looked up from the depths of Shades of Grey by Jasper Fforde, a really great book I’d recommended she read.
I love the way the vision of a persistent, mocking, relentless, flashing cursor on a blank word processing document so flawlessly represents writer’s block.
The dis-ease of writer being unable to write, whether real or imagined, can strike a disproportionate fear into any scribe.
I recently thoroughly enjoyed seeing The Last Station, starring Christopher Plummer, James McAvoy, Helen Mirren, and Paul Giamatti.
All about Leo Tolstoy and his meteoric relationship with his wife, Sofya, there was quite a bit of writing going on, albeit in the background and much to Sofya’s ire, as Tolstoy’s acolytes scribbled furiously, recording juicy details of the great writer’s personal life.
My wife is helping a friend declutter her office today. This morning I was being helpful, insomuch as I was held incommunicado but within hailing distance ready to be called upon to advise on technical matters.
I will be forever grateful to the Brisbane City Council and the Department of Main Roads for their unswerving ability to coordinate the flow of vehicles from one set of traffic lights to another on weekends.
So you want to write a book about your never-before-told experiences? You’ve decided to bare it all, everything you’ve been through or deprived of, every way you’ve been treated, mistreated, and suffered is about to be aired publicly.
“So, what sort of ghosts do you write about?”
Strangely enough, that’s a fairly common question in social situations when I tell people that I’m a ghost writer by profession.
Of course my explanation has to be carefully crafted.
The difference between eating well and eating poorly is only a few dollars. And the difference between writing well and writing poorly is only a few minutes.
“Whoa!” I hear you say.
On the phone I listen to a plaintive plea from a good friend, ‘How much will I charge?’ and understand exactly how my caller is feeling. Sally has someone interested in her writing skills and has come to the dilemma all writers-for-hire must face at some time in their careers – what to charge.
Are you writing a 1,000 page tome, a 50 page booklet, or something in between? How long should your book be, and does it really matter?
A wonderful aspect of self publishing, indie publishing, or print on demand, is that we now have extraordinary choices.