If you like Marvel films you'll like Guardians of the Galaxy. You may like it even more if you don't like everything Marvel has done. I liked it. It was smart and sweet and nostalgic, with some great performances from the cast, plus with added bonus surprise cameos and shout outs for long-term comic readers. … Continue reading Fellowship of the Orb: Review of Guardians of the Galaxy
Writing
Anti-Advice for Writers
If you are writing or thinking about writing, or reading about thinking about starting to write you will, with little trouble, come across a terrifyingly huge amount of advice. It comes in the form of: books, blogs, well-meaning friends, videos, hash-tagged conversations, mime performances, professional organisations and their magazines, software, spam invitations to pay for … Continue reading Anti-Advice for Writers
Messages in the music
Being a person in the world, I have noticed, of late, that it isn't going well. The world, that is. Drought, ice melting, reefs dying, war, famine, poverty, burning this, flooding that, rampant terrible disease things, pillaging hordes of other things, like politicians and media barons, kids being shelled, torture, censorship, kidnapping, rape memes, repression, … Continue reading Messages in the music
On Being a Writer and a Reader
Been working on the thesis and it's nearing completion. I am both hopeful of and dreading the outcome. What it is forcing me to be is to be a writer and a reader. Mostly you'll say this is easy, writers and readers share things in common, like language, and perhaps a love of and ability to … Continue reading On Being a Writer and a Reader
Answering borrowed questions (about writing)
I'm knee-deep in thesis-land at the moment, which explains fewer posts of late. However I had some time for this. The other day I was inspired by Anna Spargo-Ryan’s blog and her Q and A about writing. She has a way with words. But the questions she answered got me thinking. So it meant I … Continue reading Answering borrowed questions (about writing)
Black Swan of Trespass
The robber of dead men's dreams There is a famous Australian literary hoax, called the Ern Malley affair. Two poets invented the Melbourne poet, you guessed it, Ern Malley to dupe literary journal editor Max Harris. It was all about modernism. This is some of Ern's work, from Durer: Innsbruck, 1495: I had often cowled … Continue reading Black Swan of Trespass
Lessons from ten-ish years of short story writing
I've been writing a while now and studied courses and read a few 'how to' books. They're all helpful in their way. My advice is take advice and don't take advice. Not everything I've been told works for me and I'm ok with that. So if some of this is too obvious you can ignore … Continue reading Lessons from ten-ish years of short story writing
Going Back to Baker Street
'Ere 221B Dragons and Those Who May Spoil Them...mmmkay? Reflexivity When I write something there is me writing it #ObviousStatementisObvious. Yet if there is any art to writing, it is about removing the (obvious) evidence of me. But there is another art, or perhaps a balance, to leaving such evidence in the writing. Sometimes it's … Continue reading Going Back to Baker Street
The Hobbit: Consolations of Structure & Dreaming
Structure and Imagination The Hobbit: Desolation of Smaug was mostly a triumph of restructuring and knowing what to do with a story once it's been written. Tolkien followed a dream when he began inventing a world in between stints in the trenches of WWI, and it was one that was continually reshaped over his entire life … Continue reading The Hobbit: Consolations of Structure & Dreaming
Doctor Who: Loose Ends & Story Strands
Here are some first and maybe second thoughts and feelings about The Time of the Doctor, and also about story telling. So what this story gave us is a chance to see a time travelling companion juxtaposed an aging Doctor staying in one place, for a long time. It was the opposite perspective from the usual … Continue reading Doctor Who: Loose Ends & Story Strands
Writing Bec 