On Air

I do like wearing a big pair of headphones.

I was able to don some on Monday when I was in the ABC Adelaide radio studios, as part of a writers panel on the Peter Goers Evening show.

My fellow panellists – Caroline Lower and Chloe Szentpeteri – are also South Australian women writers, and each of us are at different stages of our writing.

Our conversation was unscripted and roamed over a few areas (as anyone who was listening may attest).

We were able to talk about why we liked writing. For me, I love reading books, so it was a natural progression to want to write books too. When I’m writing, I feel like I’m inside a new story and it’s satisfying and absorbing to be able to decide on the direction and to develop my characters.

We had a chat about writer’s block. I was honest in saying that writer’s block kept me from writing for many years, until I actually Googled ‘how to write a book’ and came across some advice about plotting. That means, these days, I plot out my book – chapter to chapter – and I have a roadmap to follow. Because of that roadmap, I rarely encounter writer’s block.

We compared notes on when we like to write.

I’m a morning person and prefer to be at the keyboard by 8am at the latest. I can write all day, but the afternoon tends to be less productive. Sometimes I have energy to write in the evening. That doesn’t happen much, and when it does it’s usually with my laptop when I’m in bed. I think it’s something to do with the change of scenery. Recently, I tapped out almost 2,000 words on a weeknight in bed.

I hope that Caroline, Chloe and I get another chance to update listeners on our progress in the future. It’s always fantastic to compare notes with other writers, even if a radio audience is listening in the background.