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Archive Category: Writing
Much Higher Education
Wednesday, 22 September 2004
For quite a while I have been dabbling with the idea of attempting a Phd. With the experience of my Masters being so demoralising, I’ve been becoming keen on attempting some proper, hands on, non-correspondence study that I can get my teeth into. So when I saw an advertisement in The Australian for a Doctorate in Creative Writing at Queensland Uni, I got very inspired, and contacted them by email. Surprisingly enough, they called me today, and I was able to have a great discussion about what my proposal might be with someone who sounded vaguely interested! I am now in a frenzy, trying to come up with ideas…any suggestions are welcome (well, almost any) - generally related to the internet, writing, and/or crime fiction.
Lustre Creme
Wednesday, 17 November 2004
I have been called by a U.K fan of [miaow], who told me that the site has lately been lacking it’s usual lustre. I was loathe to admit it, but…it’s probably a little bit true. I have been occupied by the flu, as well as the composition of another website for work (which will probably not get much use, but I learnt a few more Wordpress tricks along the way…). And now I have to start quick smart on creating a website to sell the house. Yes! It is almost probable that we might advertise it within the next two weeks. Astrologically it is not the best time, but who the hell cares about that? Not the rich tycoons that I dream of enticing.
An Ode To The Lacklustre
Soggy like an old teatowel
Around the house I roamed and howled
Flu-ridden, feeling disembowled
By the influenza dog.
Dazed and sickly, uninspired
Mostly most things made me tired
One coffee sent me wildly wired
Then felled me, like a log.
Painting ceilings gently sweating
The next morning - much regretting
From M there was no heavy petting
In the nausea ridden fog
Lots of ice I did keep licking
As the sandfly bites were prickling
Mouse finger pale from lack of clicking
I forgot my blog!
Whining entries sadly ranting
Woeful prose not worth decanting
Lost for lustre, un-enchanting
Flaccid little mog
Now my butt is kicked and ready
Rhyming running fast, yet steady
The healthy me is feeling heady
But will never wear a clog.
Bulwer-Lytton Fiction Contest ‘06
Saturday, 15 July 2006
This is mainly for Mr H. and I was alerted to it by Helen over at Cast Iron Balcony. To paraphrase, the Bulwer-Lytton Fiction Contest is an ‘international literary parody contest’ honouring the memory of the original dude to coin the phrase “It was a dark and stormy night…” (as well as writing The Last Days of Pompeii).
‘The contest began in 1982 as a quiet campus affair, attracting only three submissions. This response being a thunderous success by academic standards, the contest went public the following year and ever since has annually attracted thousands of entries from all over the world.’
Entrants have to submit BAD opening sentences to imaginary novels, and the winner this year was a pearler:
Detective Bart Lasiter was in his office studying the light from his one small window falling on his super burrito when the door swung open to reveal a woman whose body said you’ve had your last burrito for a while, whose face said angels did exist, and whose eyes said she could make you dig your own grave and lick the shovel clean.
Jim Guigli
Carmichael, CA
…and I did like this one (a runner up) because it blends two of my interests - crime fiction and cats.
Nick Stiletto, a three-inch ash hanging from his generic P&Q-brand cigarette, squinted through the wispy smoke across the nicked linoleum-covered table at the man in the blue suit, wondering why he had gone into private detection when he could have easily inherited his father’s cat-stretching business in Peoria.
Ed Buhrer
Louisa, VA
(Last years winner was printed in the Sydney Morning Herald, and it’s pretty funny too…)
NaBloPoMo
Friday, 17 November 2006
So I was feelong a bit better when I went over to WNP and saw that Shauna had also confessed to being a craptastic NaBloPoMo participant. (I type the word ‘also’ as if I too had confessed it - I’m getting to it.) But then she evilly revoked all those furry companionable feelings of failure by stating that her NaNoWriMo was going swimmingly. Gah.
Over two years in Queensland I successfully failed NaNoWriMo, while my friend L romped home with 50,000 words on each occasion. I thought I would be able to post something, anything every day here this month - but I am a hack at that too. And it didn’t help that I took off for Maldon for three or four days at the start of the month - a place where you can see a bazillion different types of stringed instruments and not one computer…
I bow my head. I will try again next year.
