The Empty Page Blog

Here at Queensland Writers Centre, we're "Loving the Ugly", which, according to Christopher Currie is not a court-ordered Community Service, but rather a peek into the private creative spaces of some Queensland writers as part of our rather wonderful Blog Tour.Hoorah! He agreed  to unveil the ugly reality of his writing space, without quite realising that by the time it came to blog about it, he wouldn't actually be at home. so he's posted two places. One where he's writing now. And his regular gig. Look closely, people. Look closely.

Enhanced Editions are very cool. They say they make tailor-make ebooks for the iphone "the way nature intended." Not only stacked full of brilliant, easy-to-use features, and hours of multimedia extras, but crafted with the editorial insight that only publishers can bring to a book. Ohhhhh.....aaaahhhhhh.... *want*

Hooray! Finally, a writer with a messy space. Well, kind of messy. "Lots of people have romantic notions of writers’ studies," says magazine, book and website editor and playwright. Katherine Lyall Watson. "I certainly did. But I soon realised that waiting for the perfect environment would mean I’d wait forever to start writing." Check out her space here.

BookOven just launched a Featured Author program on Bite-Size Edits, a wordish game that connects authors to fans and readers through the craft of writing.

QWC Member and published author Fleur McDonald (Red Dust, Blue Skies), writing time is snatched in between feeding kids, husband or animals and every other job you can imagine. Because of this, she's been known to write in a variety of places. Including the back of a ute!

The lovely Hannah Suarez from Brisbane Creative Industries /@briscreative has profiled QWC CEO Kate Eltham on the state of writing in Queensland, where the focus is on digital rights, licences and distribution, new professional writing roles emerging that didn't previously exist, the exploration of transmedia storytelling projects and working outside the traditional book publishing model.

As part of the Project Bringing the Ugly series on writers work stations, sometimes it's not about bringing the ugly as bringing the personal. Today at Karen Tyrell's work station, I feel like a creep... poking around in somebody else's personal space. The thing is, everyone knows we all still look at anyway. So come creep with me, and see what other writer's work places look like.

Project "Bringing the Ugly" isn't working so well. All our writers workspaces are just so darn attractive. Take SF writer and Silent Motion Picture Actor, Trent Jamieson. He is currently writing a series of novels called Death Works, due to be published by Orbit in 2010-2011. The rest of the time he spends artfully re-arranging his desk. Actually, no. That last bit is a lie. The rest of the time he spends doing an assortment of wonderful things, including tutoring QWC's Year of the Novel series.

Authors used to expect to struggle as they gained experience. But now it is sell -- or else. By Dani Shapiro, LA Times.

"I have taught in MFA programs for many years now, and I begin my first class of each semester by looking around the workshop table at my students' eager faces and then telling them they are pursuing a degree that will entitle them to nothing. I don't do this to be sadistic or because I want to be an unpopular professor; I tell them this because it's the truth. They are embarking on a life in which apprenticeship doesn't mean a cushy summer internship in an air-conditioned office but rather a solitary, poverty-inducing, soul-scorching voyage whose destination is unknown and unknowable."

When Graham Storrs gave up work, moved to the country, and began to focus on publishing his stories, stuff happened. Since then, he has published several short stories and his first novel, TimeSplash, was acquired by New York small press publisher, Lyrical Press.

He's been part of a few blog tours of writer's spaces before, and here's what he says:

"Fascinating as my desk is, I can’t keep posting pictures of it. It’s not as if it has seasonal changes or anything. So I’ve taken the opportunity to correct a glaring omission from my last picture and show you my computer ‘desktop’. This should be just as interesting as the wooden one since, for me at least, the computer is where 95% of the work gets done."