Grants, rewrites, anything

I've got a good excuse for not updating my blog lately. Queensland Writers Centre's Angela Slatter told me to! Or told me not too.

Well, kinda. At the One Book Many Brisbanes masterclass she gave us a few tips about living the writer's life, and one of those was that you shouldn't be updating your blog when you could be writing.

I haven't been the most diligent blogger in the past, and this basically got me off the hook!

But I felt bad because my last post was so lame, so I thought I'd better give a quick update.

The One Book Many Brisbanes masterclass was excellent. I got to work with Trent Jamieson and it was like 'being a writer' for three days. Only better, because Trent was there for metaphorical hand-holding.

So, by the end of the three days I felt that 'Bug Hunt' was a much tighter story. Having said that, when I got the final proofs I decided I didn't really like it anymore! There seemed to be way too many short sentences. Like Raymond Chandler on crack, or something like that. I'm hoping this is because I'd been re-writing it so much that I was sick of it. So it will be interesting to see how people like it.

Since then I've been rewriting the bio-terror novel I wrote last year. Moving it from 'generic US city' to Brisbane has been fun.

Unfortunately, I've been a bit sidetracked by grant applications. I've just sent off an application for the Arts Queensland Career Development Fund. If I'm successful I'll be able to go to WorldCon in September, which would be awesome.

I'm also applying for an Australia Council New Work grant. I'm very happy with my AQ application. Nothing is ever guaranteed with these things because you never know who else is applying. But I figure this really is the right time for me, so I figured I may as well throw my hat in the ring.

So thanks to Kate Eltham and Queensland Writers Centre, because without them I wouldn't have know where to start.

The frustrating thing is that my life at the moment is such that I can only work on one thing at a time, so for the past couple of weeks that has mostly been grant applications. But I'm looking on it as an investment -- if it pays off it will be well worth it.

Well, that's a brief summary of what I've been up to. If you want to know more you can find me on Twitter!