Podcasts

The perils of writing a self-help book

I perceived at least three reasons for baulking at the prospect of writing a self-help book. When I wondered why I’d been so slow to get started on my current book (Life is long: my boot camp for the bonus years) I figured that the genre was one reason for getting writer’s block.

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Old writing skills: new uses for real life problems

Oh, help, my summer writing school is less than two weeks away! I’ve been preparing seriously for a couple of weeks. Now it gets super-serious, tick tock! “Write into life” brings a brand new emphasis to my work. I’ve taught writing skills to thousands of people — for poetry, fiction, plain language, digital writing, corp […]

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32 pieces of advice for a 75-year-old

Reposted from 2015. In which various kind people give me personal advice, much of it valuable, all of it appreciated, on how to live my life.   In August 2015 I went on a seven-day cruise of New Zealand’s southernmost fiords with two friends, 29 soon-to-be friends, and six friendly crew. (What, only six? Yes: […]

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A systemless system for productive blogging

  Do you have a system for blogging? A schedule? A spreadsheet with topics and times? A goal? Wish I did. For a while I hoped that the Raewyn Gwilliam system would work for me. Every time she has an idea, she writes it as a sentence, which she saves as a draft title. Because it’s clear, accurate and […]

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Fixing Mrs Philpott: but how?

My new novel is ready for printing, after many a drama and deadline. Yippee! The launch is on 29 September and if you are in Christchurch, New Zealand, you are warmly invited to attend! Rachel Eadie at Scorpio Books is the person to contact with questions. Meantime here is the first of, well, an indeterminate […]

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