Rob Parnell's Writing Academy Blog

Writing short pieces - say up to around 5000 words - is fairly straightforward. You can, in most cases, just start writing and keep going until you've said everything you wanted and then go back and edit for sense. If you've missed something out, you can slot it into the text. Or, if you've overdone a section - or the writing is bad or unnecesary - you have good friend in the delete button. Writing longer pieces is different. Having a lot to say will take time and effort - the two things a writer cannot afford to waste. So what's the best way to approach writing longer works? It's all about preparation. It's about knowing where you're going and having some idea of your destination. Some writers say they can't write using a plan - or even knowing what the ending is. They cite Stephen King - who says he doesn't know what the endings of his stories are going to be when he starts out. It's deliberate he says because he wants to write his ch...

I don't know what happens in your part of the world but here, in Australia, January is to be dreaded and feared - it is a time of drought (intellectually and literally) and of waste (creatively and literally). But what brings about this most tragic and frustrating of times? Gah! The school holidays. For reasons unclear and lost, society has deemed that children cannot concentrate for long periods. They apparently have difficulty on a day to day basis, consequently their working days must be kept inconveniently short. But this inability to stay focused apparently also dictates that they get 12 to 16 weeks of holidays a year - much to the chagrin the parents that end up having to look after them. Far be it from me to suggest that this situation is perpetuated and encouraged by teachers - who just coincidentally benefit from these arrangements - when the rest of us are lucky to get a measly two weeks in the sun. I wouldn't be so mean to suggest that teachers as a race wou...