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Sam van Zweden

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Two Options: Write or Die.

Dr Wicked’s Write or Die is an online writing tool that promises to “put the ‘prod’ in ‘productivity'”.

Write or Die enforces the above (“two options”) ultimatum on your writing. You tell Write or Die how long you’d like to write for (from 10 mins up to 2 hours) and how many words you’d like to achieve in that time. You then select your “consequences”, which range from “gentle” to “electric shock mode”, each with its own consequences. Write or Die lets your choose a “grace period” too, (“forgiving”, “strict” or “evil”) which is the amount of time the program allows to pass before there are consequences. Write or Die opens a document in your browser, and then you start writing.

Consequences for not writing are incredibly well thought-out. They encapsulate your worst nightmares. They differ in degrees of malice, from a pop-up telling you to keep writing, to “MMM-Bop” playing, to the program actually deleting your work. It deletes it in a really horrible way too, working backwards, you see your lovely words disappearing – the only way to stop this happening is to start writing again.

These things don’t just happen randomly, there is the grace period you nominated, and then the background screen starts turning red, and then the consequences happen.

I’m great with procrastination. And I’m terrified of a blank page or document. This program battles all these things in one place, stops me from staring out windows or just reading a page or two of whatever is in front of me, or deciding that the dishes simply can’t wait until after I’ve written.

There are also a heap of handy little widgets that Write or Die gives you at the end of your session, along with your stats (eg “I wrote 200 words in 10 minutes”), which you can copy the code for and upload to a blog or facebook or whatever you please.

The only thing the online version of Write or Die doesn’t do is save your work. The website contains a warning to writers, asking them to copy and paste whatever they type in the browser into a document they can save so they don’t lose it.

There is also a desktop edition of Write or Die ($10), which looks like it remedies a lot of the issues of its online counterpart. It works on your desktop, so you can’t access all the tempting things that will stop you from writing in the first place. There are also a heap of customizable entertaining and smart bits n pieces: disabling the backspace button so that the only way is forward; making it impossible to access any windows behind Write or Die; not being able to save your work until you reach your goal; and heap of awesome stats things, one of which links to Twitter so you can wage “#wordwar” against anyone in the Twitterverse who may wish  to compete.

While I have a billion things to pay off right now, the next spare $10 I get will be going towards the desktop edition of Dr Wicked’s Write or Die… Until then though, the online version gives me plenty of impetus to write. Or die.

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The Emergence of the Writer’s Festival Program

It’s official! The date I’ve been hanging out for since last year is finally here. The Emerging Writers Festival program was launched last night, and you can now view the program on the EWF website.

I’ve already started ranking what I simply must go to, what I might go to if I come into some money, and what’s not helpful for me at all.

Things that have caught my eye:
“The First Word” ($20/$10) on the 21st of May… I went to this event last year and it got me so excited. It’s a panel event, this year’s line up includes some names I know well and others I’ve never heard… just a great way to kick of the festival.

“Express Media Skill Share” ($10ea./$30 for all four) on the 22nd of May… Express Media do some amazing work with young people, and Melbourne’s absolutely blessed to have a constant resource for our young and emerging writers. Express Media are running a bunch of workshops on the 22nd May, and have an awesome deal that you can go to all four workshops (so you’ll be there all day soaking up fantastic knowledge and skills) for $30. I’m only interested in two of these workshops, but they both look pretty great – one is run by Jo Case and it’s about writing good reviews, and the other is run by Davina Bell and Julia Carlomango and it’s about editing your work for publication… looks like some really worthwhile stuff happening with Express Media.

“Page Parlour” (FREE!) on the 23rd May is a big zine fair at the Fed Square atrium. It’s a really great place to meet people, as a lot of the stalls are manned by important people from those publications (editors etc), and also a good way to stock up on some publications that are a little harder to find.

From the 24th-28th of May, there’s something called TwitterFEST (FREE), where EWF are running interviews, discussions debates etc on Twitter, making it really democratic and interactive, everything’s just organised using #hashtags. …you don’t even have to leave the couch for this one! I’m most interested in the 28th of May at 2pm, when a slew of fantastic writers and important people will be discussing “how is Twitter helping writers?”

From the 24th to the 27th of May, Estelle Tang is hosting “15 Minutes of Fame” (FREE), at The Wheeler Centre, 7pm daily. These events will be mini book launches of books from a variety of fields. Well worth a look-in.

There’s a heap of (FREE) “guided writing exercises” from 6-7pm daily at the City Library, as part of “Creative Writing Bootcamp”… a good excuse to be forced to do something?

The 27th of May sees a regular Wheeler Centre event, “Lunchbox/Soapbox” (FREE) as part of the EWF, with Chris Flynn talking about “the role of heroic dogs in literature and movies”….sure. I’ll be there.

 “Wordstock” is always a huge event for the EWF, and it happens on the 27th May. It’s a night of performances from writers who have written in response to a certain band or artist. Last year was Nick Cave; this year is AC/DC. I met Emilie Zoe Baker not so long ago, and she’s a really amazing woman and poet. She’s performing here, as well as Sean M Whelan and some other great poets/writers, so get on down there. ($20/$10).

There’s some amazing stuff going on at the Town Hall on the 29th and 30th of May. Discussions about the writing process, what makes a good interview and all the hard parts of being a writer – the Town Hall program is a little pricier, but it’s where the bigger events happen and from the look of the lineup this year there will be some worthwhile discussions taking place in that building.

On the 29th May is an event the EWF have been talking about a lot in the lead-up to the program launch. “The Zine Bus” (FREE) is a bus which takes zines around Melbourne, and “culminates in a guerilla zine market” at Fed Square.

…The entirely too-long list of events above are only those I’m interested in. And I’ve just skimmed over the program, especially the Town Hall side of things. Get onto the EWF website, check out the program, get yourself down to some of the awesome events that will be on in just a few weeks’ time.

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Really, truly in the clutches of The Muse

I don’t even remember the last time this happened.

I’m typing a poem and I cannot stop, I’m crying and watching this clip over and over. (Thankyou Jorja Kelly for sharing it on your blog). Such intense physicality affects me in a weird way.

I’ve got a throw-away sentence in my head, and it means so much to me, it’s been torturing me since I heard it. It’s beautiful.

I’m in the clutches of the Muse, and there is nowhere I’d rather be. Truly.

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Too perfect = blank pages.

I’ve had this problem for a long time, and I suspect that for a lot of writers this is the root of the “terror of the blank page” problem.

This morning I came across a post by Fiona Gregory of “Bootcampers 101” blog. While the writers who contribute to this blog are all romance writers, they often have something to say that applies to the rest of us literary folk.

In this post, Fiona talks about how her perfectionism often holds her back from writing at all, or at least following through on anything because what’s in her head struggles to match what ends up on the page.

Thankfully, this post isn’t just a whine about how hard it is to get the cogs moving.

Some of the more helpful solutions Fiona suggests include:
– Writing to a timer. Set a timer for anywhere from a few minutes to an hour or two, and don’t move until it goes off. Just write. Don’t edit either – that’s for later.
– Scheduling a time for editing so that it doesn’t creep into your writing time. I certainly find that the more I allow myself to edit while I write, the more that filter gets in the way of my getting anything at all onto the page.

While these are small tips, and almost a bit obvious, I found them helpful. Especially as I sit in front of an impending deadline or five, banging my head against a brick wall.

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Literary crushes and excitement

I have had one particular literary crush for a long time.

On a writer, and on everything that comes out of her pen. Her laptop… Her mind.

Her name is Josephine Rowe. I saw her reading at the Emerging Writer’s festival 2009… She opened something up to me that I’d never known was there. Some writers are amazing readers, and Ms Rowe has it down pat.

She’s an amazing Melbournian poet. She writes small moments, she writes life-changing moments, she writes her own and she writes other people’s. And when you read them, you almost believe they’re yours.

So this evening when I came across a Readings event involving Josephine Rowe, I got very excited. The write-up is very vague, and indicates little to nothing about what the event actually is… But I’ll be there anyway.

If you want to discover the literary lovin’ that is Josephine Rowe, you should come along also.

Readings Carlton, 6.30pm on the 12th April.

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Limp Writers

I know you’re reading this post because of the (possibly misleading) title. I dread to think of what this will do for my search engine results… “pen” and “limp” are begging for some beauties.

Anywho, this has nothing to do with the nocturnal concerns of other jot-fiends. At least,  not those nocturnal concerns.

This has to do with Little !ndependent Melbourne Publishing – or L!MP.

This website is run by the first- and second-year Creative Writing students at RMIT. We’re a driven bunch, and this is a part of that… L!MP is in its young days, meetings are currently being held in regards to branching out with it and trying to get it out in the world. So I’m doing my bit by sharing with you guys – check it out, check back, comment, pass it on. Help us get this bad boy up n thriving.

I’ve got a piece up there, which was posted here a long while ago, but the other pieces on the site are really amazing – I am learning with some freaking talented people.

You will hear more about L!MP in the future, I promise.

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Teaser Tuesdays #3.

Now, I know I haven’t done much here lately. Missed me?
I’m in the process of clambering back on the horse. I’m back into school, Irvine Welsh speaks at the Wheeler Centre tomorrow, hopefully next week I’ll be having some writerly researchy experience with some people from Streat, and I’ve been writing a whole lot, so more of my own work might start appearing… Also back into Yartz filming next week and hopefully my first on-screen appearance on Monday. In the meantime, here’s today’s Teaser Tuesday post!

Teaser Tuesday is hosted by MizB at Should Be Reading.

  • Grab your current read.
  • Let the book fall open to a random page.
  • Share with us two (2) “teaser” sentences from that page.
  • You also need to share the title of the book that you’re getting your “teaser” from … that way people can have some great book recommendations if they like the teaser you’ve given!

” ‘Cyclops, the men you snatched with such brutal  force
and ate within your cave were surely not
the comrades of a coward. You have caused
much grief; and it returns to haunt you now:
you did not hesitate; hard heart, you ate
your guests within your house; therefore lord Zeus
has joined with other gods to batter you’ ”
                    -from Homer’s “The Odyssey”

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Beginnings

I’m beat. Bushed. Buggered. Sooooo tired. I feel like I woke up on Saturday, and haven’t stopped since.

Up until this point, I’ve avoided blogging about my latest achievement simply because I was terrified it wouldn’t stick – that I’d get there and the collective psyche would vote me out. However, on Saturday afternoon the first episode of Yartz featuring my pretty porcelain face was filmed.

Yartz is an awesome community TV show on Channel 31, (airs at 10pm Mondays and a repeat I think on Thursday night – also on youtube) which basically acts as a very independent cultural commentator, picking out all the cool things in the world and letting you know all about them…At times fanatical, at other times utterly scathing – which is where I come in.

I have been appointed book-fan extraordinaire, working with the Yartz crew and contributing to the bookish side of things. A more lovely bunch of people you could not find, so a big thankyou to one Misha Adair for his expert casting skills, and to the rest of those I’ve had anything to do with thus far for being so ready to have me on board.

Not having television myself I won’t be able to tell you when I’m on, I’m not sure if it’s this week or next, BUT as soon as it hits youtube you can expect to hear about it.

In other beginnings, today was the first day of my life at RMIT completing their Bachelor of Arts (Creative Writing). AMPED! First days are always less productive, and it did enough to get me excited about the course overall. It’s still a very new course, only in its second year, and it’s a very small group. There’s 42 of us in first year.

Today I had Cinema Studies, which consisted of Lumiere shorts and The Wizard of Oz… While it’s a 9.30 class, I get to be all cozy in a Hoyts cinema and watch films, so it’s bearable. Enjoyable, even. The news of needing to purchase a $110 textbook was a little less than welcome, but I’ve since found a filmmaker-friend who is willing to lend me a copy – thank god for commonly used textbooks!

I have to admit, this viewing of The Wizard of Oz was the first time I’d noticed the Wizard calling Scarecrow a “blundering bale of bovine fodder”… That’s the kind of insult I wish I’d penned!

The afternoon saw an “orientation” type talk in the space where Telling Stories would usually take place – and my goodness, the second year students have got me excited! The thing that always discouraged me about Swinburne was the lack of community feeling and a total lack of enthusiasm for writing. It was seen as an easy elective and not something to be pursued outside of what was forced upon us. That didn’t stop me, of course, but I was always chasing the extracurricular opportunities by myself.

Now, writing’s such an alone activity that I feel that this community feeling I’ve been wanting is absolutely crucial to being able to do it. The second year students in my course are so excited about the writing opportunities they have and create, especially those they do outside of school and share. They’re really pulling together as an artists’ collective and making it all work for themselves. Good on them, and I can’t wait to join the ranks!

So, a few new beginnings and much, much, MUCH excitement.

…just a bit proud of myself at the moment.

7

Unblocking

Having gone entirely too hard last night, I’m not writing today.

Someone else did though, and they did it very well.

This guy has written a fantabulous post sharing important people’s strategies for getting past creative blocks.

Enjoy.

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