Guest Post: Philip Craig Robotham on Writing Audio-Dramas (With Giveaway)

Hello all! Well, it will be a week tomorrow since I packed up everything, moved all but a suitcase (and a bit)'s worth into storage, and started my freelance life. Still trying to sort everything out but am carrying on.  So thank you all for your patience and support as I upend my life... again. 

Today, to fill in my very conspicuous gap, I have the wonderful Philip Craig Robotham doing a guest interview.

Philip has started up his own company, weirdworldstudios.com, producing audio drama scripts in the style of old time radio plays packaged as a fun dinner party idea. While still holding down his day job, Philip has created radio plays for three serials; Pulp Adventure, Gaslamp Mystery and Fantasy Noir. Today we talk about why radio plays, how he writes, and the challenges associated with starting a writing career.

What inspires you to write?

For me writing is enormous fun. I do it because I love the thrill of creating and allowing my imagination to run wild. I'm also an old-time radio fan. I enjoy everything from adventures like "Gunsmoke", "the Green Hornet", "the Saint", and "Yours Truly Johnny Dollar", through comedies such as "the Goon Show" and "Fibber McGee and Molly", through science fiction like "X Minus 1" and "ProjectXx", through to horror and suspense like "the Inner Sanctum". 

It's typical of me that the genre of writing that gets me excited the most is one which died out more than forty years ago. All the same, it's what I love and seems to be having something of a resurgence lately via the internet. There have been some great examples of audio drama made available recently from podcasters online. These include the fabulous "Adventures of the Red Panda", the haunting and creepy "Wormwood", the extremely professional "Leviathan Chronicles", and far too many others to list. 

I'm not a particularly florid writer. I like plain speech and simple exposition. I'm also not overly fond of having to write lengthy descriptions of people and places. As a result radio writing seems to have been made for me. 

The first of the Pulp Adventure Series

How does writing an audio drama differ from other genres?

Writing for the ear is very different to any other kind of writing that I have ever done. For one thing everything is exposition. In real life no-one ever says "look out Claire, he's holding a gun!", but in an audio drama it's essential to spell out what is happening for the listener. It's also very hard to write an audio drama with a lone character in it. If you do then you'll find yourself forced to have the character talking to him or herself constantly. The old Sam Spade voice-over was probably invented for radio shows relying on a single main character:

"I walked the last 18 steps to the battered old front door. The lock had been jimmied and swung creaking on its hinges in the evening breeze." 

There’s great atmosphere in these monologues but, personally, I like my characters to have company and it lets me indulge my taste for banter:

"What are we doing here, boss?" 

"Old man Cranston invited us to come visit him up at the house." 

"Yeah? Battered looking old place isn't it? Give me a second and I'll try the door... Hey, the lock's broken! This door's been jimmied open." 

"What gave it away, genius? The fact that it was swinging back and forth on its hinges or the crowbar lying in the dirt beside it?" 

I also like conflict and a bit of "sass". It’s harder to have that with a lone character. 

One thing you really develop when writing an audio script is your ability to do dialog and characterisation (especially dialog). That's simply because dialog is all you have to work with most of the time. You don't have to spend a lot of time labouring over descriptions of people and places when you write for radio - the listener will supply all the detail with their own imaginations - but you do have to manage dialog. In fact a judicious lack of physical description engages the listener’s imagination more effectively and helps them to identify themselves more fully with the characters. 

The other thing that is surprisingly hard to do in audio is action. A fight scene needs to be over really quickly because otherwise the listener is being treated to a whole series of bangs and whaps that don't provide anything much for the listener's imagination to grab onto... and a blow by blow description (while in keeping with many of the conventions of the genre) starts to sound like a commentary at a prize fight. When it comes to descriptions of what the characters see, hear and experience, you want just enough to tell the audience what they need to know about the environment without it sounding so unrealistic that it jettisons them out of the story. 

Another thing that's easy to forget is that the listener will not know who is speaking unless someone among the characters refers to that character by name. My very first (and thankfully long buried) attempt at script writing suffered from this problem but I still have to go through my completed scripts and make sure all the characters have been properly identified out loud before I send them off to my editor. 

BTW - finding a skilled editor to whip my work into shape is an absolute must as a self-publisher. I can't begin to say how much embarrassment I have been saved by the sharp eye of my editor. That isn’t to say that there isn't plenty more embarrassment to be had for which I am solely responsible.

Pulp Adventure - Episode 2

How do you structure your work?

I write in episodic format. That is, I write as if I'm writing episodes in a radio serial. Most of the old radio stories of the past were limited to around twenty to forty minutes or so. I find that twenty minutes is too short for telling the kind of stories I want to tell (though the discipline of paring back a story until it can be told in twenty minutes is a good one). I write what I call "feature length" plays to be read over an hour and a half to two hours and while I am writing self-contained episodes they do each contribute to a larger story. 

When it comes to the structure of my writing I find the good old three act story structure really helpful. I know lots of writers hate it, find it confining and formulaic, and in some cases even deny that it exists, but I find it helpful as a way of keeping momentum in my writing and stopping me from becoming dull. It also gives me a bridging structure for the wider story arc of each serial I write. Personally I'm not a high-concept kind of writer. Don't get me wrong, I wish I had the talent for that and envy those that do. Instead I write the kind of stories I enjoy; adventures, usually with a deal of mystery and supernatural suspense thrown in for good measure. I also write to entertain. While I like to have good-guys who are good and bad-guys who are bad, I'm not writing to instruct or make any deep moral statements about the world. I leave that kind of thing to better writers than I am. I'm simply having fun and hoping my readers do as well.

Gaslamp Mystery - Episode 1

Do you have a specific process or schedule?

I have two small children and a day job so writing is something I do in my spare time. I try to write something every day but I don't always get the chance. I don't beat myself up over this. Life happens and if I get to spend some time writing four days out of seven, I call it a win and move on. I begin with a fairly detailed outline, breaking down the acts, plot points, and character points in the story. I don't bother breaking down the scenes at this stage but I do build a pretty clear outline of all the events in the story before I sit down to write the first draft. For me an outline is essential – it gives me confidence that most of the plot problems have been solved before the writing begins. 

I write the first draft straight through. Not necessarily in one sitting but usually without going back over the text until it is all complete. I have found that if I start polishing before the first draft is complete I waste a huge amount of time writing and re-writing the same material over and over and eventually abandon the whole thing. 

Once the first draft is written I go back to the beginning and start revising. I look for plot holes, stuff that doesn't make sense, redundancy, places where my pace is either too slow or too quick (still working on this one), and points at which I can punch up the character interaction. I also check to see that I've been able to maintain the voices of my characters authentically. Finally, I revise for spelling, grammar, and punctuation problems. 

Technically I guess that's just three drafts, but my second and third drafts are a form of death by a thousand cuts where I go over and over the text until I feel that I can stand to look at it without complete embarrassment. I'm not the kind of writer who will spend forever perfecting every turn of phrase. I like telling stories and am too impatient to connect with an audience for that kind of perfectionism. Besides I've ruined more than one story by overworking it. They say that no work of art is ever finished, merely abandoned, and I guess that's true of my writing (though whether it qualifies as art is something I'll leave to the reader).

 

Fantasy Noir - Episode 1

What's the most unique thing about your writing?

Probably the most unique thing about my writing is its packaging. The plays I write, while fun to read in their own right, are designed to be performed as part of a dinner party by a group of from 6 to 8 participants. The six episodes I've published so far include everything you need to host a fun dinner party and script reading; costume ideas, period recipes, instructions for a "build it yourself" sound effects kit, and, of course, an original script. I came up with the idea as I puzzled over how I might take part in the apparent revival that audio drama online has been enjoying in recent years. Unfortunately I don’t have the technical expertise to create a podcast, nor access to the acting talent necessary to create an audio drama. 

In light of this I spent some time thinking about what I really enjoyed about the radio dramas of yore and I was suddenly struck by something. For me, the fond memories are all tied up with the time spent listening with family. It was about the fun we had together living the experience in our imaginations. I would laugh myself hoarse listening to the Goon Show and other programs. They were great times of fun, family, food and community. 

As I thought about this it occurred to me that, as much as I love professionally produced audio drama, there might be a way to recapture some of that sense of fun and community without necessarily having to invest heavily in technology and good actors. Earlier this year we held our first dinner party/script reading with an original script that I wrote to celebrate my forty third birthday. We had a blast. Food, friends, fun, and one thing more that I don't think you get by merely listening; a sense of being inside and part of the story.

What's the biggest challenge you face?

The biggest challenge I face as I enter the world of self-publishing is that of marketing my own work. Frankly... marketing is not what I'm best at. Like most people who enjoy writing (a fairly solitary task by its very nature) I don't actually know that many people. The big challenge for me, then, is spreading the word that these stories exist.

Thanks Philip!

So, with Christmas just 13 weeks away, why not take a look at hosting your own party, or giving a radio as a unique and interesting gift from as little as 5.99? 

 

Philip Craig Robotham’s “Host your own Old-Time Audio Drama” scripts are available in pdf, e-book, and print on demand versions. Check out the facebook page (https://www.facebook.com/weirdworldstudioscom) and website (http://www.weirdworldstudios.com/) for more information or to place an order

To convince you of how much fun these can be, I'm giving away 5 copies of any of these scripts. All you need to do to enter is leave a comment saying which radio play you want, and you'll go into the random draw to win one. Entries close in a week, Tuesday 1st October. 

Mid-Move Update

So today is the day. I'm moving from my beautiful little 1 bedroom apartment in trendy South Yarra and starting the life of a nomad for a few months.
Apologies all for not updating regularly. Here is what's been happening:

Decided last week that I needed to get my aunt's novella and my brother's book ready for print on demand within two weeks. Then my father asked if I could also get his short handbook proofed, formatted, cover made and ready for print on demand as well in that timeframe. I, being silly, said I would give it a go.
The reason for the rush is that I'm off to a christian conference on 11th October, and want to set up a table with the other book sellers (makes me feel quite official, sort of like a publisher!). However, since I'm printing with Createspace, the time it takes to get the proof shipped out and then the orders, even paying the ridiculous amount for express post, still means I need to be done much, much earlier.

On a side note, this is one of the reasons I've started looking at Lightning Source instead, as they have a group in Australia, so I wouldn't have to wait or pay the postage. I'm in the process of signing up with them, but there is a lot more involved, as I have to be approved as a publisher (which I have been, yah!), and then sign all the contracts etc. As my business paperwork (and people thought I was silly for actually registering as a business) is of course in the packing. But hopefully when I have it all done, it will be great. The sales rep also let slip that they actually do all Createspace's actual printing, so I was sure to be happy with the comparison of quality. Good to know.

In summary, I finished my aunt's book, and the proof should be coming late this week. My brother's book is formatted, but I'm still proofing it as I found more typos. I've also finished the full cover. My father's book I've started formatting and proofing, probably done the first half. Have an idea for the cover, but nothing more.

Then I've spent the last two days doing nothing but packing. Have I mentioned how much I hate packing? The removalists are here right now taking it all away, yah. This is the first time I've hired removalists just for myselt, and it was a brilliant idea.
I'm madly trying to type this before i disconnect my wireless internet :D

On my own writing side, I haven't had a chance to edit After the Winter yet, but I'm one session off finishing The Five Day Writer's Bootcamp, and it's really good (if I do say so myself). The rest of the week is probably going to be a write-off, but maybe on the weekend I can get it finished. Haven't quite decided which of the next ideas is going to be my project, and whether to put my effort into editing The Nice Guys Guide to Online Dating Profiles or After the winter first.

So will let you know more when I'm not standing surrounded by boxes.

Lots of love,
Buffy

My Love For Scrivener Continues...

I mentioned awhile ago, I'm sure I did, that I had moved over to using Scrivener for my writing. At first it was just because Word does its weird auto-formatting thing that makes e-books unpredictable. As you have to use Word to upload to Smashwords (though, I think they do now take epub, but you still need to get your word document to epub somehow), I wanted a more reliable way than writing the whole thing and then spending hours removing all the formatting and redoing the whole thing. 

I had heard a bit about Scrivener, and one friend had tried to tell me that if I was serious about writing I should really test it out. So I finally took the plunge and signed up for their 30 day trial (which, by the way is awesome because it counts the number of days you use it for, not 30 calendar days from when you sign up.) 

I'm in love. I don't think I've taken up a new piece of software as quickly as I've accepted Scrivener. I can't imagine working on any of my drafts not using it now. It does take some getting used to, but its benefits are so useful straight away that it's worth it.

I highly recommend watching at least the 10 minute video tutorial, because it is so packed with features that it is hard to work out everything it can do. I must admit, there is a 30 minute walk through tutorial which I've never done, but maybe one day I will. 

I'm still discovering a lot of the features, and there are a few things which I find annoying and am sure there must be a way around, I just haven't worked them out yet. However, I just wanted to highlight one way that it has totally changed my writing. 

Scrivener works in scenes and chapters, and when you are finished you 'compile' it altogether into whatever document type you need. So I've been going through importing the previous stories I've written in Word, and breaking them up into scenes so I can see how it is all fitting together. This has highlighted a serious problem in my previous writing: my chapter and scene lengths were all over the place!

Scrivener automatically displays the word count for that section down the bottom. So as I've been dividing these long documents into their scenes, I've suddenly realised that my chapters vary between 1,000 and 4,000+ words! This might be okay if I were doing it on purpose to make certain points. But I wasn't, I just wasn't writing very well.

I'm currently going through my 50,000 word draft of After The Winter. It is really illuminating to see it all broken up into scenes, because I can see where I need to expand, and other areas that are too long. Using Scrivener's outline form (which looks like cue cards on a corkboard, see below) I can type up short summaries of each scene and what I need to add to make the story work. It is giving me a clear path on what needs to be done and taken away a lot of the fear I had about it last night (to the point where I didn't start editing at all, because I was just overwhelmed with what needed to be done). 

It also helps that I can easily jump around the entire document, because the scenes outlined on the left hand side. When you are editing and/or planning, this is invaluable because I keep getting ideas like 'oh, I need to explain that when they first meet', and can skip back, put a note on the card, and be back to where I was in less than 20 seconds. Much easier than scrolling to where you think that scene was, trying to find somewhere you can leave a note, then scrolling back to where you were. 

So hopefully I will have a much more evenly written book by the time I'm finished, and more fun while I'm doing the actual writing (which is not to be underestimated).

Anyone else have great tips or features they have found with Scrivener?

Faith In Writing

I was just watching a Joyce Meyer TV podcast (does that sound like an oxymoron to anyone else?). For those of you who don't know, Joyce Meyer is an American Christian speaker, whom I love for her down to earth attitude. She reminds me very much of my mother. She's not worried with the big theologies, but that you gossiped behind someone's back. While the big theologies do need to be thought out and fought for, I think we will find that God in the end cares more about the little stuff we've done (yes, I studied theology at Oxford, which is why I think I can say this). 

Anyway, back to my point. She was talking about faith. In my theology blog, Buffy and God - The Blog, I did an early post on What Is Faith? So sometimes I feel that if I've written on it, I don't need to think about it anymore. However, it was good to be reminded, especially now because I think it applies very strongly to my writing as well. 

Joyce was saying that faith isn't something that we feel but the way that we act, where we put our trust, and that this once acted upon can bring the feeling. Does anyone else find their writing like this? I know I love writing, but there are a lot of times I don't feel like writing, which at times makes me question whether I really should be doing it. However, whenever I step out in faith and force myself to sit down, the good feelings towards writing (usually) come flooding back. 

Same with this blog. I struggle to even write on it, though once I get going I realise I have so much I want to say. Though, at the moment I'm a little drained of writing advice. I'm working on the second Five Day Writer's book: The Five Day Writer's Bootcamp. I'm just over a 1/4 of the way through, and ideally would like the first done by the end of the week, but realistically think it will be next week. Pouring out that much writing related advice does leave me a bit dry for writing on the blog. All the good things I have to say are going in there, so just read the book when it comes out. (And not to toot my own horn, but some of the ideas that are coming out are surprisingly good, even to me! Now I just need to put them into practice :D). 

So the point of today's little ramble is to have faith: act as if you are a writer, and don't fear because you don't feel like you are one.

ROW 80 Check-In:

I finally finished the first draft of A Nice Guy's Guide To Online Dating Profiles. It took longer than I wanted, but I was good and after the two weeks were up, I started on my next project and worked on this only in the evenings as overtime. It took me another week, but it is now all there in rough form. Now I just need to edit it, get one of my great fellow editors to go over it, and then it will be available to the world. If you know any guys that could do with a few handy and friendly hints, this is the book for them. It's clear, practical, and not designed to make them feel like crap about themselves (so many things out there were really negative! Don't they realise that most unsuccessful guys just need to be given a few more tips, not made to feel even worse?) 

As mentioned above, just over 1/4 through Bootcamp. Am getting back into my routine of waking up at 7am and writing for at least 2 hours before doing anything else. Up until recently I haven't been as faithful with my writing, so have lost a lot of my speed which is sad. Slowly working my way back up, but at the moment am averaging around 1,000 words an hour, compared to my previous 2,000-2,5000. Should probably follow more of my own writing advice! Does it make me a fraud if I can give other people really good writing advice but don't always do it myself? Anyone else do this? (okay, admittedly I can also give other people really good dieting advice, but watch out if you leave me alone with a block of choc.) 

Lots of editing for other people to be done, which is great, but struggling to do more than an hour or two a day at the moment. However, I think the stress of trying to move might be affecting my working ability. My apartment is in a shambles as I've tried to start sorting things, which involves pulling everything out of the drawers, then not knowing where to put them, so covering all the surfaces in different piles, deciding that before I sort this pile I really need to sort that pile, and eventually curling up on the couch fearful that the towering piles are going to crash down on me and I'll only be found when the Alsatians come to eat my body. Since the removalists are coming two weeks today, I probably shouldn't have started so early, and just done a made rush at the end. Oh well.

Other writing news, am going to start looking again at After The Winter, my 1920's romance tonight. I really love the characters in this, and want to write them through to their happy ending, but just feel the beginning is not so good, so every time I start looking at it I get discouraged. But this time I'm going to see it through. Lucinda, I will get you with Lord George if it's the last thing I do! 

There, now I have to do it, or my characters will come and murder me in my sleep. 

Nothing else to report, so I hope that you are all going well with your various projects. And sorry to the northern hemisphere, but I'm SOOOOOO glad that spring has finally arrived! Instant mood boost.

Just to make you all jealous, this was my walk to the Melbourne Writer's Festival on Friday.

Editing Metaphor and ROW 80 Check-In

I want to start with a metaphor for editing. It is a piece of writing that has been used as a metaphor for many things, and I have to admit that the author probably did not mean it to refer to the writing process. Though he was an English professor himself, so might appreciate the use. 

It comes from C.S. Lewis' Voyage of the Dawn Treader, chapter 7. The most irritating character in the entire book is a boy called Eustace Clarence Scrub, and as the narrator notes 'he almost deserved it.' Part way through the book, for those of you who don't know it, Eustace becomes a dragon. 

I think that often when we are trying to write a book, our first draft is as rough and ungainly as a dragon, though we wish it to be slim and delicate like a child.  So how do we go from one state to the other?

Have a read of the conversation between Eustace and his cousin Edmund, when Eustace is found to be a boy again.

'Well, as I say, I was lying awake and wondering what on earth would become of me. And then - but, mind you, it may have been all a dream. I don't know."
"Go on," said Edmund, with considerable patience.
"Well, anyway, I looked up and saw the very last thing I expected: a huge lion coming slowly towards me. And one queer thing was that there was no moon last night, but there was moonlight where the lion was. So it came nearer and nearer. I was terribly afraid of it. You may think that, being a dragon, I could have knocked any lion out easily enough. But it wasn't that kind of fear. I wasn't afraid of it eating me, I was just afraid of it - if you can understand. Well, it came close up to me and looked straight into my eyes. And I shut my eyes tight. But that wasn't any good because it told me to follow it."
"You mean it spoke?"
"I don't know. Now that you mention it, I don't think it did. But it told me all the same. And I knew I'd have to do what it told me, so I got up and followed it. And it led me a long way into the mountains. And there was always this moonlight over and round the lion wherever we went. So at last we came to the top of a mountain I'd never seen before and on the top of this mountain there was a garden - trees and fruit and everything. In the middle of it there was a well.
"I knew it was a well because you could see the water bubbling up from the bottom of it: but it was a lot bigger than most wells - like a very big, round bath with marble steps going down into it. The water was as clear as anything and I thought if I could get in there and bathe it would ease the pain in my leg. But the lion told me I must undress first. Mind you, I don't know if he said any words out loud or not.
"I was just going to say that I couldn't undress because I hadn't any clothes on when I suddenly thought that dragons are snaky sort of things and snakes can cast their skins. Oh, of course, thought I, that's what the lion means. So I started scratching myself and my scales began coming off all over the place. And then I scratched a little deeper and, instead of just scales coming off here and there, my whole skin started peeling off beautifully, like it does after an illness, or as if I was a banana. In a minute or two I just stepped out of it. I could see it lying there beside me, looking rather nasty. It was a most lovely feeling. So I started to go down into the well for my bathe.
"But just as I was going to put my feet into the water I looked down and saw that they were all hard and rough and wrinkled and scaly just as they had been before. Oh, that's all right, said I, it only means I had another smaller suit on underneath the first one, and I'll have to get out of it too. So 1 scratched and tore again and this underskin peeled off beautifully and out I stepped and left it lying beside the other one and went down to the well for my bathe.
"Well, exactly the same thing happened again. And I thought to myself, oh dear, how ever many skins have I got to take off? For I was longing to bathe my leg. So I scratched away for the third time and got off a third skin, just like the two others, and stepped out of it. But as soon as I looked at myself in the water I knew it had been no good.
"Then the lion said" - but I don't know if it spoke - "You will have to let me undress you." I was afraid of his claws, I can tell you, but I was pretty nearly desperate now. So I just lay flat down on my back to let him do it.
"The very first tear he made was so deep that I thought it had gone right into my heart. And when he began pulling the skin off, it hurt worse than anything I've ever felt. The only thing that made me able to bear it was just the pleasure of feeling the stuff peel off. You know - if you've ever picked the scab off a sore place. It hurts like billy-oh but it is such fun to see it coming away."
"I know exactly what you mean," said Edmund.
"Well, he peeled the beastly stuff right off - just as I thought I'd done it myself the other three times, only they hadn't hurt - and there it was lying on the grass: only ever so much thicker, and darker, and more knobbly-looking than the others had been. And there was I as smooth and soft as a peeled switch and smaller than I had been. Then he caught hold of me - I didn't like that much for I was very tender underneath now that I'd no skin on - and threw me into the water. It smarted like anything but only for a moment. After that it became perfectly delicious and as soon as I started swimming and splashing I found that all the pain had gone from my arm. And then I saw why. I'd turned into a boy again."

Editing, I believe, should always start with our own efforts. But not just scratching off a few words here and a few words there, but deep raking cuts that rip out entire sections. We should do that again and again until we can do no more. Then we must give it over to someone else, because we will rarely edit down til it hurts, and it is only then that you get through to the delicate message underneath. 

Editing is a hard lesson to learn, but so worth it when you have the chiseled, perfect product in front of you. 

I hope that imagery worked as well for you as it did for me.

ROW 80 Check-in:

I'm currently working away being a busy little bee, probably in a few too many areas of my life.

1. Starting last Friday, and continuing until this Sunday I'm volunteering at the Melbourne Writers Festival. This has been fun, and allowed me to go to other talks for free. However I have to admit that the 4-5 hour shifts, especially when they involve something thrilling like standing in foyer pointing people towards the appropriate rooms and not being able to sit down, do have their drawbacks. I've actually only had two shifts so far, and another on tomorrow and Friday, but they leave me exhausted. Having said that, it is great knowing what is happening in the Australian writing scene, who's who, and what works are coming out. 

2. At the beginning of this week I started my next two week draft: The Five Day Writer's Bootcamp, the sequel to Retreat. It's going well, and I'm enjoying writing it because some of the ideas that come out are novel to me too! I hope to get the first draft completed by the end of the next week, and then the goal is to have it published by the end of September, depending on if one of my editors has time to go through it. I'm off to a writing conference on the 11th of October. I plan to get a table so I can sell copies of Retreat and Bootcamp, as well as other books I've helped produce, if I can.

3. The project for last fortnight was The Nice Guy's Guide To Online Dating Profiles. As I actually only spent a week on it, it was not completely done. I had scheduled this week and next to edit it in the evenings (after writing, working on my business, and doing all those annoying life things). I think I should be able to get it finished and edited in that time. This is not an important project, but just something I think will help a lot of men out there. It will only be in e-book format, and hopefully should be live by the end of September as well. 

4. I've been working on a few business projects. I'm still editing my aunt's novella: A Mother's Story, and haven't gotten that up yet. However, I hope to do so as soon as possible. I've also finally sent off for my US tax exemption identity number so Amazon and Smashwords only take 5% instead of 30%. It was one of those things that once I got myself organised, didn't take that long, but was just difficult to work out what to do and where to look etc. It's now going to take about 10 weeks before I actually hear back. So, lets hope I filled in the paperwork correctly!

5. The other big news in my life at the moment is that I signed a break lease contract last week, and I'm moving out of my (beautiful) apartment to be nomadic until the end of the year. Mostly this was to keep costs down so I can give myself a decent shot at making it before having to get some other work. So I've had open for inspections Monday, Tuesday and today. Trying to keep my place perfectly clean for 3 days in a row has been a bit of a strain. However, it looks like they have found a great tenant, who will be able to move in just 10 days later than I wanted (considering the other possibility was that we found no one and I had to pay rent for months and months while not living there, this is great). Because I know ahead of time, I'm not going to move out for an extra week, so I get to enjoy my place for a little bit longer. 

But in two weeks time I'm going to have to start the big clear out and pack. I'm hoping to do a major sort and declutter, giving away all the extra things I'm not going to use for quite a while. But this will take a lot of time going through everything, deciding what to keep and what to throw out, making sure it is clean to be packed into storage or given away, etc. However, once it's all done, it will feel great, like having a dragon skin removed! 

Luckily I have nothing else planned for September, though in October things start to get busy again. I'm organising advertising for my weekend intensive. Here's a flyer I've made up today. What do you think?  It's going to be A5, is it easy enough to read? Does it make you want to come to the country and write? Any suggestions?