Jots

Attended my first virtual author talk for while: Lisa Jewell's. Haven't read her books but it's always wonderful to hear from a writer.

• Fascinating stories often come from unanswerable questions you ask the most.
• Novels often come from a singular, recurring image that won't let you go.
• Write with love. People will notice.
• Revisions follow the same paradox as time travel: woe if you meet your previous self.
• Sometimes the most fun characters to write are the most awful.
• The smallest things derail or make an entire story: use that to your advantage.
• There's nothing wrong with writing stories that continually focus on the same themes.
• A readership is a remarkable, delicate thing. Treat it with care.
• Social media isn't for sales, it's for strengthening relationships with your readers.
• Life lived through writing books.
• You pour yourself onto the page only to leave so much unsaid...the beauty of subtext.

Found some old notes from an online poetry workshop last year from the Emerging Writers Festival on 6 Sep 2024: Erasure & The Burning Haibun, hosted by Muntia Tafassum Ahmed.

• Erasure attempts to conceal and reveal: a beautiful juxtaposition.
• Erasure is a collaboration/conversation between two texts: one old, one new.
• Erasure doesn't have to be just crossed out newsprint lines, it can be an art form. Fade out the original text so you can still read it, or keep the erased text next to the original.
• Make drawings to mask the erasures for a mixed media effect.
• Create erasure with your writing: cross out words/phrases for two stories in one work.
• What impact do you want it to have on the source text?
• The haibun gained popularity in late 17th century Japan: a prose poem starting with autobiographical or non-fiction prose and closing with a metaphorical haiku.
• The burning haibun is an erasure twist on the original created by Torrin A. Greathouse: it finds the closing haiku in the original opening prose.
• The original haibun focuses on the external world, the burning on the internal.
• Lowercase source text unifies the erasure.
• A fascinating concept to play with for a burning haibun is a memory you have a different opinion of than when it originally happened.

Reflections from attending the Mildura Zine Fair in July 2024: my first zine fair and the first time I'd ever printed my zines.

• Don't sell yourself short. People will like your zines!
• Bring zines to trade as an excuse for interesting conversations.
• Use the resources you have around you.
• Make zines on paper and clean them up and arrange them digitally.
• Print folded zines double-sided so there's an interesting surprise on the non-content side.
• You can sew bindings for zines with a sewing machine.
• Small Zine Volcano accepts free zines for distribution in Melbourne and surrounds.
• Photocopying A4 (single-sided black and white) is cheapest.
• Zines can be anything and everything!

In late December 2024, I attended an Are.na Channel As Gift workshop hosted by Laurel Schwulst. Such a fascinating idea! These are my notes from attending.

• Gifting as a verb is more nourishing than the noun.
• Gift giving is often separated as its own love language, but you could argue all other love languages involve giving a gift.
• Attention and time are the ingredients for a good gift. Being a good gift giver is about listening, appreciating, and considering. You make connections between disparate things and the people you love.
• Living with the intention of generosity is gift giving at its core. Even something an email can be a gift: putting in effort shows you care.
• A wonderful gift is a Venn diagram of what you and the recipient enjoy. A moment of connection often becomes more important than the material thing.
• Thoughtful digital gifts: a memory capsule of photos, a playlist, a reader of recommended articles or books, summarizing your shared existence, an imaginary museum, reasons they're loved, and a to-do list of fun activities
• Gifting as an infinite game is a constant back-and-forth, a way of life.