a richer life with words
We often hear that writers need to have a thick skin to survive the writing business and its attendant rejections, emendations, and critiques (not to mention the pain of comparison with your artistic vision or the success of other writers). But what does this actually mean? Do we know the truth of a thick skin?
Conceiving of a website for yourself or your business is one of those things that seems simple when you start but somehow snowballs into something far more complex and terrifying. It’s a bit like starting a Saturday thinking, “I might just buy a pair of jeans” — there’s no “just” about it.
The trouble with editors is that we tend to go on holiday just when writers need us — the same time you’re on holiday from your day job and want to really get stuck in to the editing! In my absence, here’s a video to help you kick-start your revisions process.
A few months ago I closed the reading room space to have a short sabbatical from my editing business. It was one of the scarier things I’ve done in my life, coming in just short of the things that have involved actual threat of injury or death. And it has been a real gift. It allowed me the space and time to go back to my roots, and also to ask important questions of the business and myself. For example: Why am I doing this?
Writer’s block is as common as odd socks. It happens; you have to live with it and find a way to work with it. One of the best things I’ve found, for myself and clients, is to tackle it head on: get to know it by getting it down on paper, and then get away from it. (And, yes: there is such a thing as ‘editor’s block’ too.)
The University of Wollongong’s Tide anthology, the tenth edition, was launched last night to rapturous applause, and with a particular memorable speech from the subject’s founder, Dr Shady Cosgrove, in which she attributed the success of previous students of the Tide classes over the last ten years to their having been part of the wonderful trial-cum-triumph experience this subject is known to be. (This was for comic value; although she taught the subject herself for its first seven years, Cosgrove is not mad yet.)