sallymurphy.com.au

Sally Murphy, Australian author

In the Mail

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The mail man brought me something nice today – my contributor copy of Little Ears magazine, bearing my poem Raining. Always wonderful to see something I’ve written in print, and especially wonderful to see it included in such a quality publication, alongside names including Claire Saxby, Meredith Costain and Dianne Bates.

By email I also received something nice – a PDF of proofs for my new poetry book, Assemble, which will be released by Ready Ed early in 2008. Assemble is designed for classroom use and includes 24 performance poems, each with accompanying teaching notes and suggestions for classroom use. I’m delighted with the design and layout, and can’t wait to hold the final product in my hands.

At this busy time of year I find it difficult to find enough time to write, but when I see my finished work like this I remember why it’s important to keep making that time.

In the meantime, the Squeezy Blog Tour wrapped up today, after seven interesting days and seven wonderful blogs. The feedback on this tour has been excellent and I’m looking forward to hosting other authors in the future. If you don’t know about the tour, see my post below and click through to read all seven entries.

Youtube Funnies

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A writer friend sent me a link to a You-tube video today, which had me laughing more than I’d done in ages. It has some rude words in it, so I’m not going to post it here because this is a kid-friendly blog, but if you’re old enough and have ever had problems with proofreading, then click here to see why I’m laughing.

The guy’s name is Taylor Mali and he’s an American teacher, poet and comedian. I enjoyed the first one so much I watched two other clips featuring him, and the one titled What a Teacher Makes is probably my favourite, being a teacher myself, though I don’t profess to be as wonderful a teacher as he sounds.

If you’ve enjoyed those two, there’s a third one here, which is also very good – and very true.

Enjoy!

Sometimes a good laugh keeps you going.

And Another

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I worked this afternoon in my teaching job and came home with an idea for a new kids’ poem in my head, so I’ve just sat down and written the first draft. I opened up one of my favourite sites, looking for a rhyme for (of all things) ‘rhyme’. The site I used is Rhyme Zone. It’s a handy little tool which works like a rhyming dictionary. Type in a word and it will give you a list of rhyme matches, organised by syllables.

I use it often and will be using it again when it comes time to revise this poem and the one I wrote a few days ago.

Another Useful Site

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Pemberthy decided to write a haiku this morning, and I helped him find some information about the form to include his blog.

The search led me to a site which has a listing of over 500 poetic forms. You can see the list here. Each poetic term is a clickable link which leads you to an explanation of the form and, in many cases, further links to examples of the form. It’s fun to experiment with different poetic forms. It can also be great for discipline.

Writing a haiku requires you to bare everything down to just 17 syllables. Abbreviated haiku, I’ve just discovered, have even less – just nine syllables. Other forms need very specific rhyme or rhythm patterns.

Even if you don’t think you’re a poet, why not have a go? You could start with something relatively simple (and fun) such as a limerick, or might want to challenge yourself with any of the other 500 forms. Pemberthy and I will certainly be exploring further.

Let me know how you get on.

Ouch

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My back is playing up. I have a sharp pain near my right shoulder blade that just won’t go away. It was sore yesterday, had me tossing and turning all night and today is so sore I can’t vacuum, which is what I had planned for this morning. I’ve tried all my usual tricks. There’s an exercise involving lying flat on the floor with books under your head to bring your spine into alignment. Hasn’t worked this time. I’ve tried stretching the shoulder gently. Hasn’t worked. I have a bottle of stuff called Pain Cream which smells delightfully lavendery and that does ease the pain temporarily but doesn’t cure it.

Anyway, the good thing is, the shoulder pain doesn’t get worse when I sit at my desk and type, so instead of house work I’ve been able to get some stuff done. I uploaded ten new reviews to Aussiereviews, which always makes me feel good. The postie rewarded (?) me with bringing a parcel containing another seven books for review, this time from ABC Books.

The review update done, I had a chance to revisit one of my little 600 word stories from last week, which is coming along. I also typed up some free verse poems which I wrote at bedtime a couple of nights ago. I think I might have the beginnings of a free verse novel there. The main character has started whispering little snippets to me and I’ve had to jot them down.

I used to write everything down as it came to me, then redraft as I typed it into word on my computer. These days, I write prose straight onto the screen, though I still like to reread in hard copy. Now that I’m working with poetry for the first time in a long while, I’m finding the inspiration is hitting me when I’m away from the computer and when it isn’t necessarily convenient to use the computer. I don’t have a laptop, but even if I did, I like writing the old fashioned way sometimes.

Anyway, it seems the sore shoulder has been a blessing today because I’ve got lots done. I’d best stop complaining about the pain and take the time to write write write.

sallymurphy.com.au