Author to appear at BWC meeting

THE Bendigo Writers Council is preparing to begin the year on a high by welcoming best-selling local author Amy Doak as a special guest at its January meeting on the 28th of the month.

Doak, an award-winning author who writes considerably thrilling mystery novels for teens, will provide a number of tips and tricks on how to be productive in writing in a time-poor world.

She’ll also discuss some of the mental blocks that can limit a writer’s output.

She said being productive is “more about getting your head in the right space and making sure that you’re not putting too much pressure on yourself.”

“Writing is definitely a marathon, not a sprint,” she said.

“It’s really easy to beat yourself up that you’re not doing enough and then quit because of it.

“It’s (also) easy to think that if you love writing and you love reading that you should be naturally good at it and should be able to write a whole novel.

“But, we’d never expect that if someone was doing violin lessons – we wouldn’t expect them to play in an orchestra next month.

“But, for some reason with writing, we expect that from ourselves and from other people.

“It’s really important to remind yourself that like anything else you’ve got to really work hard at it.”

Ms Doak said anyone who wants to “write more” this year would benefit from coming along on the night – not just to be inspired, but also to be able to meet other like-minded people.

“It’s such a solitary thing,” she said.

“One of the things that’s really helped me (was) having a writer’s group or people who I (could) meet with regularly and talk about where I’m stuck and what I’m working on.

“It’s a great opportunity to meet other writers at different stages of their writing life and know that you’re not alone.”

BWC Writers Explore January – Making Time to Write with Amy Doak takes place at the Bendigo Library on Wednesday 28 January from 7 to 9pm. The $10 entry fee includes supper.