The Best Job in the World

You may have read about this in your travels. This post is not a writing one but it is one I would like you to read if you have time.

I applied for this job and now I need your help. You may wonder why when there is only a little over 30,000 applicants last I looked, so why wouldn’t they pick me? I like a challenge. Anyway, there are two ways to get into the last eleven applicants. The first is through the natural selection process of the video and other information you can provide on the first go round (very scant but I am ingenious) and the second is through a popularity poll, and that’s where you come in.

For those who are happy to help, go to this link, http://www.islandreefjob.com/#/applicants/watch/drBJmKIVGSI and watch the video then rate it high, very high. If I win, we all win. It may take a while to load. You can also try this button below


As an update, I have also added a new poetry blog to the web that you might like to have a look at and maybe even comment on. The link is http://australianpoet.blogspot.com/

Thanks all

BJR

PS pass the link on to friends etc if you feel happy to do that

fruitylicious

Hi all, I'm back and creating posts again. They will all have something to do with writing but it may just be that you have to read through to the end to find out what! I will attempt to make them all entertaining for you as a trade off for having to read right through to the end.

Yesterday my wife and I drove the forty minute trip from one side of Canberra to the other just to have coffee and food at Fruitylicious in Gunghalin. Yes I know the names might seem a bit funny, even more so to those of you who do not live in Australia but I have to say, this lunchtime all you can eat feast is amazing. There is pizza, vegetarian food, curries, zucchini fritters, sweet potato filled delights that were just amazing and so many other things I just could not list them all here. And then of course they had vanilla slice. I think my wife ate four but don't tell anyone. We did not have breakfast before we went and we could not eat dinner that night.

Superb. So what has this to do with writing?

The creativity they put into there dishes is brilliant, but that is not what puts us here.

When I was leaving I was talking to Cathy (or Kathy?) and she mentioned she never had time to read anymore. I have often heard people say they could not find time to write but not finding time to read is an even deeper dilemma. As our conversation went on however, I did discover that Cathy's children read, but sadly there is nothing on my website for children.

When I was out on my morning walk this morning however, I decided to change that. I am going to design a children's section on my website (bernardjrossi.com) where I will put some reading for younger people but also encourage the young to start writing and contributing to the site themselves.

Who knows, the next great Australian Author might get their start right there, on my pages.

Take care all and I look forward to staring some discussions in the next few weeks that will get us all thinking. And while we're on the subject of thinking, take a little visit to my poetry blog, http://australianpoet.blogspot.com/, you might find a gem or two there over the next few weeks or you might just get an idea or some inspiration.

Good luck all, and thanks once more to Cathy and her team at Fruityliscious.

BJR

Great first pages

First let me apologise for taking so long to get back to my blog. I had a weekend with my youngest brother a little while ago and we decided to write some songs (he is a great musician) and I have been flat out working on that project as well as my latest manuscript. I have not neglected my writing group though and this week we met and discussed the first pages of many novels.

Our group is very strong, we had a dozen people present on Wednesday night and there were a few apologies, so when we discuss topics like this we get a wide range of ideas and thoughts, which is the object of the exercise.

There are so many books in the world it is a big decision just to come up with two or three each to discuss and some people went for the classics, others went for books that had me reaching for dictionaries and googling terms used by midway through page one. When I read I prefer to read, not research but others loved the learning aspect of these books. I myself chose three very different books, all by large selling authors, as this is something I think we all want to achieve.

Raymond Chandler's Killer in The Rain was one I chose. His dialogue is so brilliant it describes the physical appearance of the character without him having to, and it entertains as it does so. His choice of names also is perfect and describes the character he is creating. In this book he introduces three characters on page one but one of them he only gives you his name. Violets McGee. In my mind that was all I needed to see the character in my head. There was also a descriptive sentence He looked like a bouncer who had just come into money, which I thought was concise but perfect way to het the man into the reader's head.

The range of books we talked about included The Girl who Loved Tom Gordon by Stephen King, Abarat, but we talked more about the way the title appears on the cover then we did about the first page, The Book Thief, Captain Corelli, Middlesex, The Little Friend by Donna Tartt and The Hopkins Manuscript, as well as many more.

It was a great way to learn what worked and did not work on the first page of a book, it also showed that there is not one formula to work to as readers all prefer something different to each other, and it also highlighted the usefulness of these types of writing groups.

We had two first nighters on Wednesday, one of whom was only now about to embark on his writing journey, and they came away from that with a lot of knowledge but also they gained confidence from talking to others and finding out that this dream we all have running around in our heads is in fact achievable.

Exercises like this are well worth doing so if you are in writers group get active and involved.

Good luck and good writing.

E-Book publishing

I spoke on Wednesday night at a writers forum about E-Books and I found the conversation that came within my presentation from the group was very robust. It highlighted to me the interest that exists with writers in this approach to getting their work out into the big wide world for others to read, and the internet is a very big, wide world indeed.
Whilst the discussion was mainly focused on the process of getting an E-Book created and whether or not it was something a writer should do it themselves I did find myself taking a different path along the way to get a few important points across. I will come back on another day to discuss the process but today I thought I would make those same important points here.
Statistics are quoted often regarding the sales of E-Books and the way they are increasing but one important point to remember when looking at those figures is that they start from a low base and there are now so many E-Books being created. The sales do not mean each book, or any book is selling really well, it may mean that millions of books are selling a couple of copies each.
The real issue for me is the quality of the work however, as it always should be with an author. Yes you can get your book out inot the E-Book world without as much editing and without having to jump through as many hoops and many of you will do that with pride and ensure the work is at its best, but some see this as an easy path and a shortcut.
Remember, if you put inferior work out there it is there for all to see. That includes publishers and agents who you might want to convince at a later date that you are someone they should have in their stable.
It would be nice if we could separate the good from the bad but we are a long way off so E-Books will get the reputation that writers and authors allow them too, at least for now.
One last point on quality, the best way to sell your E-Book, should you go down that path, is to allow the first chapter or so to be read free online, thereby tempting readers into buying the book through the interest you have generated. This means that with this medium, as with traditional publishing, your first page and your first chapter have to be as close to perfect as you can get them.
Good luck to all those going down this path, I think the perfect scenario for all authors would be to have everything you ever wrote published both traditionally and in E-Book format as this reaches maximum audience so do not discount this form, but use it wisely.

Writing and publishing eBooks

On Wednesday night I will be attending my local Fact and Fiction forum and will be giving a talk on Ebooks. My fellow writers in this group, like most of us, are looking at all the possible mediums for getting their work published and this is a realistic way to go for some people. It really depends on what you hope to gain and it certainly is a starting point for those finding it difficult to get a foothold.

Over the coming weeks I will cover a few of the major points in blogs here so feel free to come by and have a look or to send me your thoughts. We might all benefit from this exercise.

Tomorrow I will swing by and discuss the wonderful and soulful world of poetry. I might even share a purpose written one for all those interested.

BJR

Where the Novels began

At last I have the chance to continue discussing my writing history, the journey that was. I had success with a few short stories and got great feedback about my writing from those who would never have said it any other way. It was time to move on and I chose novels.

Why?

Because I had no idea how to go about writing film scripts of course. One could argue I had no idea about novels either but that discussion is for another day.

I sat and pondered what I would write about as unlike many writers I did not have a book that I had always wanted to write (I now have somewhere close to thirteen I have a burning ambition to write but I;m older now). I scratched my head for a week or so and then read the Saturday morning newspaper and two stories caught my imagination. I was so excited I didn't even plot (much) or do characterisations (much), I just sat at the keyboard and began typing. Three months later there on my desk sat Arlington Reef.

Yes, I have skipped a bit of the process of what went on during the writing process but they will be blogs for later days when people ask me questions about aspects of the books or the agony I went through.

Some of you who have taken an interest in my career thus far will now be saying you thought Room 22 was my first book and so it was. The first one to be published that is, not the first written.

I tried the same process for Room 22, that is I read the newspapers looking for inspiration. I had some pretty nifty characters (some would say evil, weird etc) but they needed a few stories to be happening around them as they fought out their battle for ultimate supremacy (forget I said that). I lived in Cairns at the time and nobody did anything spectacular for weeks so finally in desperation I put four of my short stories together and that was the first few chapters. It kinda grew from there and I am about to write the third book in the series which will be the culmination of this epic battle.

I have learned so much in the years follow my decision to write novels (the first was in 2000/2001) but the one thing I think stands out above all else is that their is so much to write and so little time.

Writers block is not an option (but plotting helps a lot when the block tries to stalk you).

As usual I have written much and said little but there is many more blogs to come.

I would love to hear from some of you re your experiences too, particularly if they fit somehow with what I am talking about.

Until tomorrow...

BJR

And the winner is...

The competition to win a copy of Room 22 is over and we have a winner. BRIAN.

Congratulations Brian, I'll get the book out to you as soon as I can (its an ebook so it shouldn't take long)

For all those who missed out (and for Brian) there will be another chance to win a book beginning in the next week or so and this time you will have the choice between the two ebooks I have published and if the winner really prefers I can make it a paperback.

BJR