Blog
Welcome to the Busybird blog, where you can find helpful articles, updates, industry news and more. Make sure you stay up to date by signing up to our newsletter below.
Luckily we love reading
February 20, 2012Our short story competition has now closed and we’re getting hyped up for reading. With aro
und 200entries, that’s a lot of words.
Why do people enter writing competitions? Or why should you? Well, because we’re writers ourselves, we believe there’s a lot of value in doing it.
Firstly, by entering a competition, a writer has the task of actually finishing a piece and making sure that it’s of publishable quality. Many writers do have trouble finishing a story, believe it or not. Have a look at your notebooks. How many starts have you made on a story and then abandoned it because you don’t know how to finish? It’s apparent when reading stories too because it can be going along nicely and then the end seems to let the story down.
Secondly, sending stories out, whether to competitions or as submissions to journals such as [untitled] not only makes a writer finish stories but it allows them to put them out into the world rather than keep them in the bottom drawer of the desk. This is how you improve as a writer.
So, we here at Busybird will be trawling through the [untitled] competition entries in the next few weeks in search of great stories to be included in our next edition due out in April.
Almost there!
January 29, 2012
There’s something very daunting about publishing a book. So much time and effort goes into making it, then it’s time to send it out into the world. And we have been busy. Suddenly, we have two books about to be launched, so February is going to be very busy. And I’m so excited!
Tomorrow, the guys and girls at McPherson’s Print Group will open up my package, which contains the proofs for Journey and Who is a Cheeky Monkey? These proofs have been checked and rechecked but I cannot believe how nervous I feel about them being perfect. Mind you, I have Les Zig looking over my shoulder and he doesn’t really let me get away with anything. ‘There’s a full stop missing there …’ And as much as I grizzle at him at that moment when I want to put stuff in the ‘done’ tray, I know that I’m going to be happier with the end result.
Now we wait for the first printed proofs and hold our breath …
Back to Work
January 25, 2012
We’ve been home a few days now but have somehow managed to maintain a blissed-out state of mind that comes from total relaxation. Bella of course was in her element, playing in the creek.
So, it’s 2012 and we’ve got a HUGE year coming up. I’ve been putting the final touches to two very important books that’ll be launched in February and March.
Journey: Experiences with Breast Cancer has taken nearly two years to put together and we’re very proud of how it has evolved. We’ll be launching that on Saturday 25 February in Eltham.
And our other book? Who is a Cheeky Monkey? will be launched early March and of course it has cheeky illustrations by Kev Howlett. Stay tuned for more info for that too.
And so another year …
December 29, 2011On Christmas Day, after spending a great time with family, we decided to head home early because of the weather. I imagined arriving home to a floating bedroom. But the drive home was more exciting and was very much like out of an apocalyptic movie (but without the Zombie’s! said my youngest son).
Of course, the writer in me has stored all that information away. As we continued driving home (a ten minute drive took forty five because of flooding) I imagined what we would do if this really was a catastrophe. And then, when we arrived home to soggy carpet, I decided that we own too much crap and I have resolved to declutter my life.
Is that a New Year resolution? Well, yes, it’s part of my resolution. Top of my list is to write more, as it is EVERY single year. But in this coming year, 2012 (there’s something about the number that elicits calmness over me) I do resolve to write more and to play more.
What will you promise for YOURSELF?
Happy New Year to all and may 2012 (The National Year of Reading) be one of great adventure.
The Key to Creativity
November 26, 2011Did anyone out there read the article about Google this morning in the Age? What an extraordinary phenomena is Google. But the information that really resonates with me, in that article, is the fact that staff at Google are allocated 20% of their time to work on their own projects. So in reality, Google are letting people play. This play time created what we now know as gmail. This relates to something I was talking about a few posts back about restocking the well.
To be creative, you really do need to play, go out and talk to people, be adventurous. That’s why artists, writers, musicians say they are ‘working’ when they’re lying on the couch, sitting in cafes people watching or perusing galleries. So for EVERYONE, no matter what industry you’re in, the key to being creative is to play.
So give yourself permission to do just that. Be silly, playful, waste some time. You’ll be amazed at what you’ll discover about yourself, how you’ll solve some incessant problem and guess what? You’ll enjoy doing it.