Rob Parnell's Writing Academy Blog

Is writing an insane way of spending our time? My mother seems to think it is - even now that she's finally accepted that's what I do. And my dad too was bemused by my choice of career, seeing as, to him, actually reading an entire book is akin to having his fingernails forcibly removed. Robert Louis Stevenson once said he felt reading was 'mighty bloodless' and no substitute for real life - but there again he was famously adventurous, a fact he used to advantage in his novels. But I think most authors wouldn't agree. On the opposite side of the spectrum you have Logan Pearsall Smith who said, "People say that life is the thing, but I prefer reading." I can relate to that. I like my own blood to stay on the inside of my body - whereas I don't mind reading, and writing, about someone else's blood spilling all over the page in the fight for justice, truth or freedom. It's not really about coming down definitively on one side or the ot...

A student contacted me the other day to say that she'd been reading some bestselling books to inspire her - but that unfortunately it was having the opposite effect! She said she was feeling very intimidated by the way these bestselling authors spun words, described everything so beautifully and really got her involved in the story. She came away from reading feeling depressed that she could never compete, that she would never be as good as these other writers. She asked if I might read one of these authors, dissect their style and tell her how she might emulate these great writers. I flinched inwardly. I couldn't help myself. Because I make it a rule NOT to read great authors when I'm writing a novel - for exactly the same reasons as my student! A long time ago I discovered that reading writers like Stephen King, Robert Harris, Michael Chrichton and James Patterson stopped my writing in its tracks.  These guys write with such flair - they make it seem so e...

There's a lot about living a writer's life that is frustrating. Endless rewrites, rejections, angst, self-loathing - but not least is the sheer amount of time people take getting back to us! Publishers are the worst, agents second with editors being marginally faster. The worst response of all - and the reason why the wait can be so hard - is no response at all. Email has made things worse. I don't know how they do it. I make a point of answering all of my emails.  But I don't understand professionals who simply choose not to respond at all. I regularly send out submissions to agents when I have a book idea. Strike rate? I'm lucky if 30% respond. The others clearly think the delete button or the waste basket are their most effective business tools. They might be right - for them. But the poor writers who are being ignored, shunned and demeaned by this response surely deserve better. Writers are made to feel sometimes that pride is optional. The crazy ...

Scientists studying nature are getting inceasingly good at working out how things work. From the Big Bang Theory to DNA. From the evolution of species to how chocolate can make us happy. We now have a pretty good idea how life works from the smallest chemical action to the largest atomic reaction. It seems as though one day we will know how everything in our Universe works... but there is one crucial element missing. The why. We know that sunlight makes plants photosynthesize carbon dioxide into oxygen. We know that when an electrical spark is applied to gasoline it explodes. We know that when water boils it turns to steam. We know these things and a host of others because we can prove them - every time. But do we know why they happen? Scientists say that these reactions are 'coded' into the makeup of the elements. That these reactions are inevitable, given the right circumstances. We know that during the Big Bang, for instance, certain elements came together, making...

If you want people to buy your work, you need to let them know about it. And you have to balance that with how successful marketing can seem a bit vulgar sometimes. Like the ads on TV - we don't like them but we know that deep down, TV wouldn't exist without ads. It couldn't. Nor could magazines or newspapers - or, more especially, the Internet. (Sorry to burst your bubble on this but if you think the Net is in any way free, you're kidding yourself. For a start, how much do you pay AOL for access per month? And how exactly do Yahoo, Google and Microsoft survive as the big three - it ain't charity, Bub, I can tell you that much.) We'd like to think, as writers, we can be quiet, reserved, indeed anonymous - and people will somehow hear about us and buy our books - by word of mouth perhaps. By luck or by other people's promotional skills. Alas those days are over - if they ever existed in the first place! Publishers are just as concerned about market...

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...