Mike Murphy's writing diary: October 2013

Thursday, 17 October 2013

Lots of interest in writing retreat

The article in the Writing WA newsletter saying I am providing accommodation for writers who want to come for a week or two and get some serious writing done in a quiet, secluded environment, has produced instant response.
A woman who is writing a historical family saga set in Scotland has booked in for two weeks in November/December, an author/illustrator of children's books is coming to check out if the place is suitable, and a man writing a YA novel has tentatively booked for January.
I am getting quite excited about the prospect of meeting other writers with the opportunity to talk in depth with them and see how they go about their work. Meetings at festivals and other events are usually short and fairly superficial.
If there are any more writers out there who are interested, the idea is you come and stay with me on my bush property near Walpole on the south coast of Western Australia and write to your heart's content. There is good accommodation, you share meals and contribute to the cost of food and other household running costs and hopefully, there will be lots of opportunities to talk about our work and writing generally. Email me on mjmurphy@westnet.com.au if you want to know more.

Go Grandma ! October 2013

My latest novel, Murder For A Grandmother is rolling along since I went back and changed a lot of my original chapters. It was the old kiss principal. I cut out a lot of complicated plot twists and some sub-plots and got back to the main theme, which is Grandma solving the murder and saving her grandson from the hangman. I still have a tendency to try and save some of the original but I find it much easier to delete it and trust my subconscious to remember any particularly good bits that should go back in.
I also googled faces for my characters and pinned them up on my wallboard, which I find helps as I can glance up and say "how do you feel about this" or "what are you going to do next" and their faces often give me the answers.
Since I already have a publisher who has at least expressed interest in the idea for this series I am feeling quite confident about it. Ideas for sequels are bubbling in my brain and it is hard not to stop and write them now. Priority has to be to get one complete draft of the first one which I am happy with. Then maybe I can jot down some notes for others before coming back to the revisions.

Authors I like

Anna Jacobs

A mentor in my early writing days and still one of my favourite authors. Her sagas about family life in Lancashire are among my favourites but she is a prolific writer and it's all good.

Michael Robotham

Michael urged me to keep writing when I was in a depressed period after another publisher's knock-back. He is basically why I kept writing and turned to self-publishing. I've read all his books and I'm always waiting eagerly for the next one.

Dave Warner

I only recently discovered Dave as a writer after having had his Dave Warner and The Suburbs album since it was on vinyl. It's interesting having another writer who sets his stories in Western Australia.

Dick Francis

I've read all his books at least twice and sometime more often. He's the writer I always return to when I need to feel totally in my comfort zone. Good stories, tight plots, easy writing style. I'd love to know if it really was his wife Mary who wrote them. His son Felix is doing a great job of keeping the family business going.

Leslie Thomas

Ever since Virgin Soldiers I've been hooked on Leslie Thomas and his Dangerous Davies series are among my all-time favourites.

I am because I write

I come across a lot of people who would like to be writers and I often wonder why. For me there has been no question. Since a very young age I have been a writer. Certainly not a famous or even successful one but while other people were doctors or teachers or sportspeople, the thing I did best and was most comfortable doing was writing. For some reason I had a natural flair for it and that raw talent was honed when I became a journalist and learned that what bubbled out of my head was not what was needed. I had to to be able to write to order. One of my earliest lessons came from Bob Duffield, a reporter who took the story of the closure of Perth's Roe Street brothels and wrote different versions of it for convervative, sensationalist, religious and sociological publications. I learned that writing was a craft to be learned, and I have spent many years learning not only the craft of writing, but of story-telling, which is an art in itself. Whether it's a poem, a short story, a novel, my family history, one of my blogs or web sites, I will always be writing something. It's simply who I am and what I do.