I’m headed to the Adelaide Writers’ Festival in a few weeks, so I’m hoping to see some of you South Australian fans there.
Here’s my schedule:
SUNDAY MARCH 3, 5PM
WEST STAGE
Pioneer Women’s Memorial Garden
Leviathan: Scott Westerfeld (US/AUS)
This is me having a long chat with my old buddy Sean Williams. We will be talking about All Of The Stuff.
Click here for more.
MONDAY MARCH 4, 5PM
EAST STAGE
Pioneer Women’s Memorial Garden
Highways to a War: A Reading
War stories are among our oldest narratives and this session of readings will explore some of our more recent wars. Christopher Koch has taken us to Cambodia, Vietnam and Indonesia. Peter Robb has introduced us to the mean streets of Italy and Brazil. Tom Keneally has chronicled both the World Wars. Scott Westerfeld explores an alternative First World War and Ross McMullin chronicles the letters home.
It looks like I’ll be doing a reading for this second one, and with Tom Keneally! (AKA the guy who wrote Schindler’s Ark.) Click here for more.
For more details about the festival, click here. Note that these sessions are FREE, and at the Pioneer Women’s Memorial Garden.
I figure this is a comment for the other post, but conversation is pretty much dead over there, so I’m writing it here:
I’ve officially applied to Alpha! Let’s hope I make it, I wanna meet Scott so badly! Too bad previous attendance (supposedly) doesn’t help you get accepted.
@49: Good luck! I have some final changes I want to make to my application story before I send everything in….I can feel paranoia setting in. Best of luck to you, though!
@50: Good luck to you too. It’ll be pretty cool to actually meet some of you if we all get accepted!
@51: Ahhh, yes! Don’t get me too excited, though. I’m terrified. O_O XD Going to work on my story now….
@52: Go, go, go! You can do it! *encouragement* 🙂
ahh, Westerblog is such a reliable de-stresser. i’m so glad there were some new comments to read.
most. stressful. longest. day. ever. of. my. life.
@44-47, those are some great songs! really cool music! an awesome surprise
@53: Aw, thanks. I just finished….fingers crossed. Ahhhhhhh….
@55: Good job! Now for 45 days of stress. Yikes! Although I think last year I might’ve gotten it a bit earlier than that…
@56: I KNOW. I could’ve just died after I sent everything in. I was that nervous. Thank God my friend emailed me the stupidest video I’d seen in forever; it was a real stress-reliever.
@57: That’s good. Videos of cats getting stuck in shoes and the like are excellent.
20 people get accepted, but also 5 people get wait-listed, so even if you get on the wait list I’d still consider that a win. It’s good practice anyhow, if your serious about creative-writing. Speaking of which, I really need to work on my novel… 😛
@58: WHOA I knew there was a person-limit, but I never sought it out because it would make me too terrified. 20 GAH.
Ooh, hello, fellow novel-writer. I need to work on mine too….Preferably the one I actually finished, though I have several unfinished ones. With Scott and Justine’s daily NaNoWriMo tips from ’09 I finished my novel in 15 days (during August CampNaNoWriMo) and never looked at it again. Okay, I did look, but I couldn’t get over how many simple words I spelled wrong to do anything to it. I flinch when I look at it, but I know I have to edit it someday. Good luck with yours!
Oops, sorry. I thought you knew that. Hey, I won’t say around how many apply, which I totally know. It could be 25 for all you know. 🙂
I’ve never had the nerve to do NaNoWriMo. It scares me. I figure it’d probably be good for me if I did, but I’m not brave enough. And even if it’s crap (which I’m sure it’s not), at least you’ve finished one. I have yet to accomplish the task. I currently have five chapters consisting of 25,550 words, though. Unfortunately, I’m sorta stuck and majorly procrastinating about it.
I suggest just skipping the sticky bit. I left a huge portion of world building undone in my novel because my mind when totally blank, and I rambled on and on about how exactly the world got to be the way it was (it’s futuristic) instead of how it actually was. I hate getting stuck, because the scenes I get stuck on are always the ones that worked best in my head. Ugh.
NaNo isn’t that scary, really. Okay, so the first time I did it, I didn’t finish, but it was during school. But now there’s CampNaNoWriMo during the summer! You should try it. I’m always amazed when I go back to my journals and see all the extra time I had since there was no school. I even finished early. And who cares if it’s awful? Just you, mostly. And then you get perpetual bragging rights. Just imagine: I WROTE A NOVEL IN A MONTH. You can do it! 🙂
@ Sgt. Pepper – wow, that guy’s got a real songwriting talent. I guess his voice could take a little getting used to, but I really enjoyed the songs, especially Hold On. Thanks yet again for introducing me to another awesome musician.
In the meanwhile, let me recommend Voxtrot and the Cold War Kids 🙂
@61: Maybe I’ll do it this summer, then. Except April seems awfully soon, and July, well I plan on having plans. 🙂
I shall try to work on it. It’s not really that problematic, I guess it’s just getting started on a new chapter that never seems appealing…
@63: You should! I’m pretty sure CampNaNo is in August and June, or at least it was last year. There is Script Frenzy in April, though. Unless they changed it around; I haven’t checked in awhile. I just know official NaNo is in Novemeber….
I have a problem with finishing things, not starting them really; chapters or otherwise. My novel and short story for Alpha are the only stories I’ve actually completed (woe is me XD). I always complain about not having time to write, then when I do I’m sort of like:
O.o I must have some other useless thing to do….XD
@ Middy Me – Glad you like Tom Waits! I’ll check Voxtrot and the Cold War Kids as soon as possible. This music sharing is fun!
“We are buried beneath the weight of information, which is being confused with knowledge; quantity is being confused with abundance and wealth with happiness.
We are monkeys with money and guns.”
– Tom Waits
@ Sgt. Pepper –
“We are all on different lanes,
but we`ll always be on the same road”
– Brad Arnold (3 Doors Down singer)
@65: Oh, I thought the website said April and July…
I tend to be pretty inconvenient when it comes to writing. I drag my feet whenever I’m in the middle of something. But whenever I’m done I’m like “Oh, I wanna work on it…oh wait I finished it already…”
My brain is stupid.
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@69, does he do pick-me-up spells? everyone’s got some serious “winter blues” laziness happening at my house.
@68: That’s sort of like me right now. I really, really want to write about Leo and Briette (OCs from my novel), but then I remember I finished it and I’m too lazy to figure out the sequel. Even though I know the end of the trilogy….Plus, I have no time. Time hates me.
@71: lol. One of my OC’s is named Leo, too!
I also finally got around to starting chapter six. I’ve written about 1000 words. Yay me! But I haven’t done much since because I came down with an AWFUL fever and cough for the last couple of days. 🙁
@72, i hope you get better! everyone at my school seems to be sick, too.
happy daylight savings, everyone!
@72: Yay, for you! Wow, what a coincidence. I spent forever trying to decide on Leo’s name. I can’t believe I ever considered naming him something else. Briette I always knew. She wasn’t originally in the same story at Leo, though. I hope you feel better!
@73: I just found out today about daylight savings….time flies….
@73, 74: Thanks for the well-wishes, you guys. I am definitely on the mend.
@74: I actually had a lot of trouble picking Leo’s name too. Mine novel’s set in a kind of old-timey fairytale land, so I pretty much make up people’s names using the Latin for their most obvious traits. I just couldn’t find anything like that for Leo though, but I eventually decided on Leroy (meaning “king” [not in Latin] since he’s a prince) with Leo as a nickname.
I suggest we take whatever conversation we have left to the new thread.
@75: Heading over….
hi,there
watch the newet movie scarymovie5 here: