Month: April 2016

My Creative Writing Playlist

~ Tamara Drazic ~ 1 Comment

Good morning everyone, I hope you’re all doing well. I’ve been doing a lot of writing on a new project this morning, and I realised how much listening to music helps me to get in the right frame of mind. It’s not just any music though – I can only write to very specific songs. I love reading about other writers’ processes, so I thought I’d share a list of my favourite songs to write to. Of course, it varies depending on the scene I’m writing, and the project I’m working on, but currently, this is what I listen to to get into the zone:

  • Good as Gold by the Apache Relay
  • Dancing in the Dark by Bruce Springsteen
  • Mission Bells by the Apache Relay (this one is perfect for sad/emotional scenes)
  • Golden Slumbers by the Beatles
  • Never Coming Down by Willamette Stone (for fast-paced, happy scenes)
  • Brand New Day by Kodaline
  • The Happiest Day of Your Life by the Apache Relay (makes me sad which makes me write sad scenes better)
  • The Only Thing by Sufjan Stevens (perfect for those character reflection moments)
  • Love Like This by Kodaline (Acoustic version)
  • Something by the Beatles

That’s it for now, but I’m sure I’ll be adding to this list as I get further into my work-in-progress. What music, if any, do you listen to while you write? Let me know in the comments!

Thanks for reading,

Yours truly,

Tamara

 

New Bookshelf Additions

~ Tamara Drazic ~ 3 Comments

I’ve been buying quite a few books lately, but I haven’t had the chance to do a lot of reading outside of my prescribed novels for University. I thought I’d write a post about the books on my shelf that I finally have time to read, and the books that I’ll hopefully be reviewing as soon as I go on winter break in June!

*In the Quiet, by Eliza Henry. I met this author at the Brisbane Writer’s Festival last year, and still haven’t gotten around to reading her debut novel. Main themes are love, loss, and grieving.

*House of Leaves, by Mark Z. Danielewski. This book is a cult classic, confusing, multi P.O.V., over 700 page, insane, experimentally structured romance about an evil house. That’s what I’ve gathered so far, but it’s all very confusing.

*The Rehearsal, by Eleanor Catton. I’ve recently started working on a book with similar themes within a theatre setting, so I wanted to pick this up and read it to make sure I don’t steer my story too closely towards this one. It’s by the author of The Luminaries.

*The Dust that Falls from Dreams, by Louis de Bernieres. I bought this over a year ago and haven’t gotten around to reading it yet. All I know is that it’s about children in the Edwardian age as it disintegrates into the great war.

*Les Miserables, by Victor Hugo. The 1000 page classic novel that my favourite musical is based off of. I really need to get around to reading this.

So they’re all of the novels that I’ve bought fairly recently and haven’t yet gotten around to reading. Have you read any of them? Which one should I read first?

Yours Sincerely,

Tamara Drazic

 

The Good Kind of Rejection Letter

~ Tamara Drazic ~ 6 Comments

Hi everyone,

I’m sure you’ve seen the news about J.K. Rowling posting her rejection letters to inspire writers to never stop submitting. It really does help to soften the blow of a rejection when you see concrete evidence of famous authors being rejected over and over again before making their big break. Today I woke up to another rejection letter in my inbox, but it actually put me in a great mood. This one, unlike countless others I’ve received before it, has just a tiny hint of hope–an undertone of validation. I’ve blanked out which journal sent it to me just for privacy, but it’s a journal that I’d be overjoyed to be published in one day. I thought I’d share my rejection with you to remind you to look at every step forward as a success, no matter how small. Here it is:

Dear Tamara Drazic,

Thank you so much for submitting to ************. We have read your work with interest, and although we are not accepting it, it did come close. We would love to see more work from you, so please feel free to resubmit during our next reading period.

Again, thanks for sending us your work. We hope to read more from you soon.

Assistant Editors

************

As writers I think it’s so hard to not sink into the everything-I-write-is-rubbish mindset, so it’s important to pick apart your rejection letters and find the positives inside them. Often you’ll just get a standard declined, but when you do get something more, hold on to it. Being rejected is just another thing you have in common with the writers you admire, after all.

Happy writing!

Yours Sincerely,

Tamara Drazic

Writing Quote of the Day – Chekov

~ Tamara Drazic ~ 1 Comment

My lectures at university are full of great quotes by famous writers, and I always copy them into my note book so furiously that my hand starts to cramp. There’s so much to be learned from them, and the way that these writers word things always sheds light on a new aspect of the craft that I haven’t yet thought about, or fully understood. I thought I might start a little Quote of the Day series, in which I’ll share with you my favourite of the many writing-related quotes I’ve come across, either in a lecture or in my own research. Today in class my lecturer shared this great quote by the Russian writer, Chekov:

I’m not interested in answers, I’m interested in questions.

This quote accompanied a part of the lecture that discussed novels as expansion devices. They don’t have to have the answers to everything, but they should raise questions, and discuss them. In my lecturer’s words, they should expand the universe. Literature is a part of an ever-flowing discourse, and I find it so exhilarating that, as writers, we can have our say.

I hope you enjoyed this,

Yours Sincerely,

Tamara Drazic