This week has been a holiday week of a sorts for me. We had Independence Day in the middle of the week, my husband was home from University and my son home from boarding school so I read less on the internet than I normally do. Still there was plenty happening.
My first blog post I'd like to direct you to is at Jude Dibia's blog. For those who don't know him, Jude is an awarding winning Nigerian writer. He asks in his post- "Does African Writing Take itself Way Too Seriously All of the Time?" This is an important question and an important debate. Someone in the comments mentions who are African writers writing for? That's another question that needs much discussion. I've mentioned here before that a reading culture in Botswana and in many other African countries is not strong. Could it be that we African writers are to be blamed? Are we writing to the wrong audience? Even if you are not an African writer I think your input is important.
Where writers write is always an interesting topic. This week Elizabeth Bradley wrote an interesting post about that. Great photos of writers' rooms are posted too. I love the quotes especially this one from Ernest Hemingway- It is none of their business that you have to learn how to write. Let them think you were born that way.
Elsa Neal an Australian writer has been doing a fantastic series over at Blood Red Pencil. The first post was Building an Online Platform. Then Using Web 2.0 Content Sites to Expand Your Platform and finally Writing Your Online Platform. I'll admit I was one of the people who was very sceptical about this platform business when it came to fiction writers. Yes, for nonfiction writers I see it's point, but for fiction writers I wasn't so sure. Elsa explains things so clearly that suddenly I see the urgency of doing this correctly. I am seriously techno-challenged but I have already started building a website for my book, The Fatal Payout. It has been chosen as a prescribed book for junior secondary schools in Botswana and I thought I'd put some fun activities on the website for students to do around the book. I've chosen a free website place. I haven't gone too far yet but here's the start.
Hope you enjoy stopping by the links and have a lovely weekend!
6 comments:
Thank you for giving me the links to some very interesting posts! I had already seen Elizabeth Bradley's and her post intrigued me to the point where I now have the book winging its way through my library system so that I can have a nice long time with it.
Elspeth
How sweet of you to mention me, Lauri. I could have gone on and on with that particular post! I am intrigued with writer's lives. I enjoyed it when you posted the picture of the view out your own window into your yard. And I love that Hemingway quote, writers should heed his words!
I'm so glad my posts helped you. That website looks really cute - I love the book design. What happened to your other website? - the one with the Kate paintings?
Thank you so much, Lauri for drawing attention to my blog. You really are special.
For some reason, I was not able to log into my blogger account for some days... not until Saturday was I successful.
Thank you again and keep up the good work!
Daoine-I have all those pages but I stopped the website where it was being hosted. Mainly because I was not able to change things and the guy who could always made promises and never came through. I just felt the money was not worth it. I did find many place where I can host that website for free but I am not technical enough to do the job. For now I'm going with this blog and maybe that Fatal Payout site if I can get it done.
Jude- I really don't know what is happening. I also cannot log on Facebook properly. Even this blog I had such a problem with then I saw something called compatibility view (in internet options)and clicked it now I get a little torn piece of paper button at the top that I have to click all of the time if I want my blog to work properly. Perhaps I'm having some strange virus though I keep running scans and it doesn't get sorted out.
Are you running the latest version of your browser (IE or Firefox)? Click Help and Check for Updates. If you're running an old version it could cause compatibility issues, and also expose you to malware.
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