#amwriting

Here’s a slightly embarrassing confession: when I was in early highschool, I used to write essays … for fun. That’s right. I would voluntarily think of some topic and just unleash the pen. I had an itch, and social status be damned, I was going to scratch it.

So here I am, nearly thirty years later, still scratching.

I write day and night. By day, I’m a freelance science journalist writing about everything from the evolutionary mechanics of penis size (I’m not kidding, look it up) to the early life of the West Australian dhufish. I write for newspapers, magazines and websites.

By night, I’m a non-fiction author, having written a book about death, and co-authored a book about sustainability and innovation, both published by Random House Australia – a fact I’m still in a state of mild shock over.

And lurking in the twilight like a hungry fox, I’m an aspiring fiction writer – science fiction at the moment – sweating over the fourth draft of my first novel and hoping desperately that some agent and then some publisher will see a spark of potential in these hard fought words, and put my words into print. Hopefully then people will buy it for something other than a novelty Christmas present to eke a chuckle out of an elderly uncle.

Finally, coming spectacularly late to the party, I’m dipping a toe into the vast, murky, swirling waters of bloggery.

I’ve spent a lot of time over the past few years talking to people about science journalism, particularly freelance science journalism, and just recently have started also talking about writing as an author. I figured that this might be a good subject to blog about, given I’m now feeling confident enough in my abilities as a writer as to take that hubristic next step of thinking I may have something to add to the already vast blog resources on writing.

So here is my blog about writing as a journalist, writing as a freelancer, writing as a non-fiction author, writing as an aspiring fiction author, and writing as a blogger. And probably also something in there about writing those bitterly incisive angry letters to the editor, ‘cos I do those occasionally as well.