The end of the year is drawing nigh, but there is still time to redeem yourself and finish that writing project you started at the beginning of the year (or even several years ago!). It all…
Busting your draft!
Writing is such an up and down business — but through the good days and bad days somehow we keep plodding on. For over ten years I’ve been leading a monthly group in Sydney called Draft…
Writing in the Asia Pacific
Are you are a writer or translator with an interest in the Asia Pacific Region? If so, there is a great conference coming up this October 22-24, in conjunction with, and prior to the Ubud Writers…
Writing on the roof of the world
It’s been a long time coming, but finally we are going to Tibet. We’ve been to Bhutan twice, so I guess you could say we were getting closer. All it took was a note from our…
Dreaming up your imaginary writer’s den
When I work with writers and artists the main tool I use is guided meditation. We could be sitting anywhere: an office block in a noisy city, the ruins of Angkor Wat, a beach in Bali,…
Living a haiku kind of life
We are just back from our Haiku Walking in Japan journey and I have to say it definitely surpassed all our expectations. Our host company Walk Japan provided a tailored itinerary which allowed for our daily…
The art of writing travel
What is the difference between writing travel and travel writing ? While it can seem like a bit of a grey area, travel writing is the name given to a form of journalism or reportage that…
Breakthrough writing
Sometimes all it takes to bring on a breakthrough is to change location. Taking yourself out your everyday into someone else’s. I’ve seen this happen time and time again on our Writers Journeys and it was…
The escape of writing
As writers we love to escape into the act of writing. But what happens when you find yourself wanting to escape from your escape? Annie Dillard says in The Writing Life: ” How we spend our…
Writing as spiritual practice
I’ve always suspected writing had a deeply spiritual purpose, even before I found Natalie Goldberg and others like her who were making the connection back in the 80s. (Rumi and the poets of ancient times were…
Setting daily goals
The usefulness of goal setting is well known. We all get carried at with it at New Years, making resolutions and promises to introduce to new routines and habits, but how many of us follow up…
A good day to write
Today is Good Friday and it’s a good day for writing. Go out for a walk, get some hot cross buns and chocolate eggs and hunker down. Don’t tell anyone, just put the DND sign on…