Ernest Hemingway has advice for writers: “All you have to do is write one true sentence. Write the truest sentence that you know." We know this is harder than it sounds. Secretly, of course, we are looking for more than one. So was he. But one sentence is a good place to start. A while … Continue reading Ten Good Sentences
Tag: writing
It’s Back to School for Elwood Writers
The Elwood Writers will feature on the ‘Back to School’ edition of Cover to Cover for Vision Australia Radio on Friday 26 January 2018. Our group has collaborated with producer and presenter, Tim McQueen, to compile a program comprising poetry, fiction and memoir on multifaceted notions of school. I look forward to sharing my two … Continue reading It’s Back to School for Elwood Writers
Making a Scene
‘Keep the drama on the page.' So says Julia Cameron, author of The Artists Way. In other words, make your writing dramatic, not your life. (Well, we can but try.) In my memoir drafts I have a series of themes and anecdotes, but not so much the stuff of drama. By this I mean a … Continue reading Making a Scene
The Writing Group
It is said that you can’t teach writing. Maybe not. But writers, I believe, can sure help themselves. Since 2008 I’ve been lucky enough to be a member of Elwood Writers (EW), a group that meets fortnightly in Melbourne’s inner city. I read on one member’s blog that our group is one of the most … Continue reading The Writing Group
Showing Ten Good Stories
Memoirist Nick Flynn writes: “A memoir is not simply stringing together the five or ten good stories you’ve been telling about your wacky childhood for your whole life, … you need to ask yourself why you’ve been telling those particular stories, and not the millions of others you could tell.” That, says Flynn, is the … Continue reading Showing Ten Good Stories
WRITINGS AND MUSINGS OF MARGARET MCCAFFREY 