In the late 80s I had a friend who was an abstract artist. His goal was to be a successful painter. He studied art, subscribed to every important creative magazine, and lived in a granny flat that was converted into his studio most of the time. He once explained that the purpose of a review …
Writing about music without infringing copyright.
It's hard to write a novel about 90s rave culture without mentioning music. You have to be careful not to infringe copyright. This has been a real issue with my story set around Sydney's Oxford Street in that era. I started by referencing songs without using their lyrics. Or I'd reference those lyrics without using …
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How Covid-19 made me forget how my novel ends
I've been working hard on my novel set in the 90s. After I began the first draft last year, I had to drop momentum because of Covid. You see, I need quiet to write. That's why I often go to the library to work on a project. And the library was shut early to mid …
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The first draft is when you get your ideas down
I'd heard this many times. Due to lack of a private space to write during Covid, I have one completed first draft and one still being written. I usually have three works at various stages of progress. One at first draft, one at third and one almost ready to submit. But this week I finally …
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Mistaken for a Romance Writer
My assessor said I blended genres. She worked with me on my first novel, and while I liked books, it never dawned on me their genres were so rigid. I had television experience and in the film and TV world, blending and re-inventing genres was normal. When I started promoting myself and my book, Drama …
Four writing rules my editors taught me
I learnt a lot with my first novel. I had various drafts of Drama Queens with Love Scenes assessed before I contacted publishers, and through that process I learnt the first rule I still stick to. 1: Find the right word. When my manuscript came back from my assessor, she often had a word circled …
I planned to write. Really, I did.
This is the true story of my holiday break. No names have been changed. Not even the German Shepherd, whose known as Jetta. Leading up to Christmas and onward to New Year, I planned to develop the plot to my novel set in the 1990s. My husband was working from home so it was the …
Researching the Sydney Gay Scene of the 90s – Part 2
Writing these blogs is helping with my research. I realised this during the past week. It's a great way for me to categorise the different themes I want to explore in my novel set in the 1990s. In the last blog I talked about my first impressions of the pages I copied from the Sydney …
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Researching the Sydney Gay Scene of the 90s – Part 1
A whole box of microfilm was waiting for me at the State Library of NSW. A lovely librarian arranged copies of the Sydney Star Observer from the 1990s, as well as a couple of years' worth of Capital Q, at my request. Both were significant street press which covered queer issues. The former still exists. …
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Trying to encapsulate my novel in 100 words
I tried to court an agent. As regular readers of my blog know, I've been working on a manuscript titled The Midnight Man for four years. It's quite polished, so I thought I'd use it as my calling card to seek representation. Many authors hate creating the synopsis that sits on the back cover their …
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kevin klehr - author 