sallymurphy.com.au

Sally Murphy, Australian author

Finding Time

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The Murphlets have gone back to school today after the long Summer holidays. I love having my kids home for the holidays, but must confess to being happy to see them back at school, so I can get more writing done. And I think they were happy to be back at school, too, or at least acceptant of the fact that they were going there.

So now the house will be quiet from 9 till 3, and I should have oodles of time for writing in peace. The funny thing is, most of my published books were written while I still had one or more children at home, or during school holidays. I think this is because I learned to make the most of the opportunities that I did get to write. I wrote the two stories which make up Doggy Duo sitting at the kitchen table, writing in longhand while I drank my afternoon coffee and the kids buzzed around. Pemberthy and Floatingest were both written while I had two Murphlets still at home. Again, I snatched moments while they were playing, or waited until they were asleep.

So, if you have kids at home, or work fulltime, or have another barrier in the way of finding quality writing time, don’t despair. You can make the time, you can find the time, you can even steal the time (who needs an ironed pillowcase anyway?). If you are determined to write, you’ll do so.

Good luck with it.

Writing Advice – A Useful Site

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One piece of advice I often give to new writers is to read books and articles about writing regularly. Of course, it would be easy to spend so much time studying such writing advice that one didn’t actually have time to write, but it is important to devote some time on a regular basis to hearing what works for other writers. No one can offer a formula that will exactly work for you, but at the same time, hearing what works for others helps you to evolve your own craft.

Anyway, as I said, this is advice I often give, but it’s not advice I always follow myself. I’m time-starved and sometimes feel resentful at the prospect of giving up work time to learn. But I have resolved this year to spend a little more time reading what others have to say, and today have been reading the opening ‘pages’ of Advice on Novel Writing by Crawford Kilian, which I came across online. So far I’ve only read the section on Efficient Work Habits, but as I read I found myself nodding my head at much of it – stuff I already knew but which I needed to be reminded about. His suggestion about writing letters to yourself as you write – much as an editor might write to you during the editing process – was a new one, but interesting.

Anyway, if you’re stuck for a little inspiration yourself, or just needing some good writing advice, this site may be worth browsing. As I come across others, I’ll post them here.

Best Seller

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This is the cover of my newest book, Assembly, from Ready Ed publications. I was pleasantly surprised just now when I went to the Ready Ed website and found the book listed there as I’d thought the release date was February or March – although I’ve had my author copies for ages.
So, a nice surprise, as I say – and an even nicer surprise to see that it is the bestseller in its category on the site. That means people are buying the book and that, hopefully, when school goes back next week, students will be reading and enjoying my poems.
Another added bonus was to find another of my books also in the bestsellers list, with Spellbound
coming in at number nine.

I’m happy dancing!

New Reviews

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Have just added eight new reviews to Aussiereviews – the first for 2008. It feels good – hope you enjoy them.

Happy Australia Day

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Happy Australia Day. What better thing to celebrate than the wonderful country where I live. As the new Australian of the Year, Lee Kernaghan said in his acceptance speech, there is no greater honour than to be Australian.

Anyway, here I am dressed up for the Corrigin Australian Day Breakfast. I had fun with the temporary tattoos, though you can see only one in the photo. The other essential item for my annual Australia Day costume is the earrings, miniature Australia-shapes, with the flag on them (you can see them in the second photo). I’ve had the earrings for more than twenty years and remember them as being only a few dollars when I bought them, so they’ve done well.

After attending the breakfast with five of the Murphlets and my beloved, I had a relaxing day – watched the women’s final of the Australian Open Tennis, a little of the Australia versus India cricket test, and also took the Murphlets to the local pool for a cool down, and the annual bombie competition. Lots of fun.

Also finished reading three books – Victory, by Gary Crew, a wonderful Aussie author, and two little chapter books from the Captain Cal series.

All in all a pretty good day – community, family, sport, and, of course, good books

I hope you had a similarly full and enjoyable Australia Day if you’re an Aussie and, if you’re not, that you spared a thought for Australia – a pretty good country, if I do say so myself.

sallymurphy.com.au