Great Pirate, Big Issue

Posted on by taniacreations

Link: http://www.thebigissue.org.au/

There is an article inside the Big Issue magazine which is phenomenal. I have to confess I have bought the magazine a couple of times before to support “solutions to help homeless, disadvantaged and marginalised people positively change their lives”. But I had never read it until now.
It was a series of coincidences, or maybe fate, that made me read that article. I left the house a couple of minutes earlier, the moment I got to the stop the bus was getting there and even though it was a bit full, I took it. When I got to my destination, the bus stopped almost at the corner of the park which is unusual. I got the bus through the front squeezing myself in between the people and was almost spilled out, landing in front of the guy selling the Big Issue.
It wasn’t one of the most recognisable vendors they have; Sydney has a few I can now spot from the years I’ve been walking around. Some have specific looks and some specific chants for selling the product. When I landed on the man, he quickly offered the magazine and I just took it.
I’m not sure why, or even better, how. I had my iPad on one hand, one purse where I was trying to shove my iPad with the zipper half opened, still having the iPhone on my hands and another bag with my food and pretty shoes inside. I paid and him and he made a bit of fun of me. ‘Oh my God! So many things, there is the phone, the pad’ he said. I laughed and finally shoved the thing into the purse, the phone into the pocket and started skimming over the magazine while walking through the park.

Big Issue Vendor Sydney CBD


I pause here to ponder on a complete and spreadable insanity that seems to be taking us all over. Why couldn’t I wait and just walk for the four minutes and forty seven seconds it takes to get to work? Or seat down in the park to read as I was early? But I couldn’t, I had to shove some more information into my head in the couple of minutes I was walking like I had shoved the pad into the bag.
I was going through the magazine and landed on a page that had something about pirates.
I like pirates.
I started to read and laugh, from the start.
Because the bus came without a moment wasted in the morning and the traffic was blessedly light I was early to work and decided to get a toast in the cafe near the office and enjoy the reading.
The article was by Max Attwood, who is described as “a Melbourne-based comedian, actor and writer. (…) He tries to channel his laziness into creativity, but usually ends up eating biscuits instead” and his writing was simply brilliant.
It reminds me of the style of my favourite Brazilian writer, Luis Fernando Verissimo, the style being what we would call, in Brazil, a “chronicle”. We don’t seem to have a specific word here in Australia for this type of comedic writing about daily life style.
I was laughing so loud at the cafe the waitress – I refuse to call her a waiter to be politically correct, it was a lady waiter so pardon me if I will use the correct term, I don’t find or intend any offence to women – well, she got so curious when she came to deliver my toast that I showed her the cover of the magazine and said ‘ha ha, big issue, ha, very funny, great, ha ha’ I doubt she understood anything. It was a feeble attempt to explain if I couldn’t apologise for my loud and very indiscreet laugh.
It is this tale of a man who becomes a pirate. Modern days. Corporate world. I won’t say more, you have to read it. Buy the magazine if you can, it is a not for profit and will help the person you buy it from. “Pirates Don’t Need To” made my day. Thank you Mr. Attwood for writing this article rather than eating biscuits. Even though I’m pretty sure when you finished there were crumbles all over your keyboard!

(Orble Votes: 22)

The Difference in My Writing Technique

Posted on by taniacreations

Link: www.uts.edu.au/future-students/find-a-course/…

It is not about you know, it is about the knowledge that becomes intuitive…

I am on a Masters of Arts in Creative Writing at UTS which I have started two years and six subjects ago. Recently I was revising something I have written when I was beginning the course.
I have realised how far I have come.
Mostly it was like practice driving.
When you learn how to drive you learn what you have to do but only by doing it repeatedly you will get to the point of really knowing it without having to think “now I have to break and look to both sides of the road for pedestrians”.
I had the knowledge of what was point of view, verbal tense, subjectivity of the narrator, before I started the course. But with the practice of reading, correcting and workshopping so many texts, pieces, articles, I realise now it is easy for me to analyse it, really see it and find the discrepancies.
Before I knew but could not see it. I would start a text in the present and change to immediate past without realising or be unaware that the point of view jumped in subtle ways.
Now I get it, my writing becomes clearer to me.
I rewrote the text with much more confidence.
Education pays greatly in my opinion.
Of course you can learn by yourself, but learning with help from people who know what they are doing and how to teach it has been an amazing experience.

(Orble Votes: 21)

Prayer for the Published Word

Posted on by taniacreations
I pray these words carry through
that they have enough weight to be picked up and tossed high
that they find anyone who will get something from reading them
May they find the ones who need them and the ones needed by them
I pray they reach people and inspire them, to positive change
I ask the Universe God, Buda, Allah and Zeus to aid them to fulfil their mission
And I declare that if only one person, by only one phrase I have now published, get to one worthwhile realisation, it will have been worth…
The timeless hours; taking notes through the night, disturbed sleep, anxiety, study, reading, re-writing, correcting, editing, the watching of others nipping and piercing through your creation, the pain, the joy, the despair, the fear and the fulfilment
It will have been worth it
My deep gratefulness for the privilege of putting these words to the World
By the power invested in me
Amen
(Orble Votes: 23)

I look with optimism at the decay of the publishing world

Posted on by taniacreations
“The world is changed, I feel it in the water, I feel it in the earth, I smell it in the air. Much that once was, is lost…”
Galadriel’s words come to me when I look at the publishing world. I’m seeing many bookstores closing, I look at my own reading habits and how much they have changed since I acquired my first Kindle.
When I look at Amazon’s best sellers lists I see several self-published books competing with the largest publishers, and quite often these publishers are not doing a very good job in promoting their books and authors in the ebook platforms.
I have knowledge of ebook publishing and can see several errors in basic strategy that are more common to the publishers than the individual authors.
I look at all that is changing and see great opportunities. There are so many wonderful books I would like to re-read that are not online; there are many great books in other languages that were never translated because of the difficulty to reach a market. So many series forgotten in libraries because it was hard to get all the books in the series, in their proper order would have been even harder.
The ebooks bring the classics for free and a lot more for free, good and bad. These free books are wonderful opportunities to promote a new author. Writers able to create series of books are the ones who are more prone to success.
What I believe is happening is the old publishing houses to be stuck in their stubbornness to prove they are right, instead of looking ahead of what is coming next.
I understand, quality will suffer, glamour is lost, jobs are on the line. But change is change and there is no point struggling against it, you have to go with it, see where it takes you. I find there is a need to find new avenues to promote their books and their writers. I have read mostly unknown writers since I have gotten my kindle. Before I would go to a library or a bookstore and choose among the best sellers and known ones.
I still feel a bit romantic and would love to see my book in hardcover, do book signings in a bookstore. But that may be a scene from the past, is is possible bookstores are doomed and I am part of what caused this change.
What is that saying? Lying in the bed you’ve made? I hope I can do it, with pleasure.
(Orble Votes: 23)

What Works in Writing

Posted on by taniacreations
 I wonder if one day I will know what works and what doesn’t for me. In inspiration and writing, every time is different. I’m creating a new book, one written in English this time. But my inspiration and especially my confidence are fragile.
How much feedback is good? What to accept and what not. Sometimes I feel I don’t want to listen, unless it is positive. On the other hand there is a great benefit in listening, to the good and the bad, learning, adjusting, in finding the way.
(Orble Votes: 32)

Becoming a Master

Posted on by taniacreations
Although I’ve been writing less here, I’m writing more in general. I’m on a new path now: I’m doing a Master of Arts in Creative Writing at UTS. I’m loving it. When you are “on purpose” and doing your passion it always goes well.
Funny thing is that I didn’t even know such thing existed! I’ve always wanted to do a masters degree but not of something that wasn’t a priority. As soon as a friend from a writer’s group told me about it, I went for it!
This blog and my website, I’m sure, helped me to get accepted for the program. The Advanced Narrative Writing classes taught by Rosie Scott are not only a high level technically, they are also great fun. I’m also on a Theory and Creative Writing class, where we talk about very strange notions, ininteligible texts, obscure writings and intelectual conundrums. All worth it.
The end result of the course is the writing of a novel. I was going to write a novel anyway, to have such a structure to guide me through it will be great. Being a migrant with English as a second language, I can grow much more for having this contact.
Again I feel privileged to be in Australia where there is a government program to support students. Had I not been here, I wouldn’t be able to be doing this right now with the easy I’m doing it.
I know this all looks too positive, suspiciously so, I could imagine, but it is how I really feel.
(Orble Votes: 44)

taniacreations dot com

Posted on by taniacreations
I have created a website from my writing. It may seem a bit crazy but the idea was “spoken” in a dream by my own voice inside my mind: “create a writer’s website”. www.taniacreations.com
Writing this website is like going on a road that you don’t know where it ends. It is unpredictable, with unfathomable results. Here I am investing in something I have no financial reasons to do but I am intuitively sure it had to be done.
It has been an interesting journey, becoming a full time writer… At the beginning I was terrified when people asked me:
– What do you do for a living?
Shaking I would answer in a very low voice “well… I’m a writer, trying to publish some books in Brazil”. And felt I could possibly die if anyone asked me:
– And is it possible to make a living out of it?
Now I am confident, smiley even. I’ve settle for the truth as I see it, not what my physical senses are telling me right now. I go for the reality I am creating:
– Of course it is!
Now I can scream out loud: I AM A WRITER, FULL TIME WRITER!!! You will be able to buy my books online (if you read Portuguese) very soon. But the next book will be written in English!
And you know what? The feedback I’m getting is wonderful. Every single person I talk to motivates me to go on.
This is the reality I am creating: walking in the sun recording my thoughts for future writing, spending the days (sometimes nights, sometimes weekends) writing.
I hope you enjoy the website, it is, literally, a dream come true!
(Orble Votes: 33)

Living the Life of My Dreams

Posted on by taniacreations
I feel like I was born to write. It just feels right. The feedback I receive is that I do have a gift. So this is what I am doing. Although I am posting less writings in my blogs it is because I am actually acting on the becoming a novelist part.
I have just finished preparing my first book for publication. I am currently distributing it to editors. This one is written in Portuguese, as is the next one. I have another fiction novel written which I am now going to correct and prepare for edition too.
Thinking about all that it came to my mind something I have written about before: thinking like a writer. Writing is so right for me because I am always thinking as if I am writing a story. That is how I came to the thought that it is a veritable crime that telepathy, controlled telepathy, doesn’t exist. I would love to jump to another person’s mind just to see how they process their thoughts; it has to be different from where I do. Imagine that a musician would think about the world as the sounds it produces. And a painter see the colours, almost as if the sounds would be fading, just background. A photographer would think in still poses, while a videographer would always think about the connection of the events.
It was in this thought stream that I realised I can, and I do, enter other people’s minds! Reading, listening to music, watching a movie, through all arts. Maybe that is why art is so imbedded into humanity, for the capacity it has to bring us the power of telepathy.
We create a world around us always based on the way we think. I wonder if I write because I think in narratives or if I think through stories because I am a writer. The egg or the chicken? Have you ever realised that most characters from most writers in history like to read? And it is pretty common for the author to make a remark in the story saying that the character likes to read, usually a lot. Writers, by definition, like to read, so our lives in general sieve through the life of the beings we breathe life into.
I am living this life of my dreams. I have given myself the permission to go through my savings and write for the love of my life, in the sense of survival. As if it was the only thing I was meant to do. And it feels so perfect. I trust the universe to bring me the means to continue to do that. Meanwhile I am dedicating myself of living life fully and as a full time writer.
(Orble Votes: 126)