My writing week 2(31)

I’ve got bronchitis, with one of the worst coughs I can remember having. Maybe it’s some kind of germ revenge after I got over the flu and conjunctivitis in only a week earlier this winter. I have spent most of the past five days in a daze, which is not that conducive to writing. I’ve already erroneously deleted this blog post once.

Anyway, last week I finished redrafting chapter seven of Stalking Tigers. Now I just have to edit it. I came across a problem near the end of the chapter when I realised the characters had left out a stage in what they were doing. Perhaps nine out of ten readers wouldn’t have noticed it, but I decided to include it anyway. This created the problem of them probably not having enough time to complete everything I had them doing on that day. As their physical activities are linked to character and plot development, I feared I would have to rearranging a lot of chapter eight and then nine and so on, but I managed to fit everything in to the end of chapter seven and that day.

I critiqued a story last week. After sitting here and thinking about it for a while, I can’t remember what it was about. I did have a bit to say from memory. No reading, too busy coughing and dozing.

I’ve just read that Labour’s National Conference resolved “that the Federal Government should give priority to preserving the economic and cultural viability of Australian literature and book publishing”. An ALP working group will prepare a report to be considered by cabinet when they decide on the Productivity Commission’s proposal to remove restrictions on parallel imports. So there is hope that Labor might reject changes to the copyright laws.

I’ve been thinking, shouldn’t the Productivity Commission be investigating booksellers like Dymocks, Coles and Safeway, because, from what I’ve read, 30 to 50% of the cost of a book goes to the bookseller.

Graham.