The Tide of Life

The life of man can be explained, it seems

as being similar to a tide and the sea.

A parallel can be drawn, this means,

between the oceans of the world, and me.

Life starts out with the infant's first breath

As the new tide starts with water's turn

Building life slowly so far from death

Experience and knowledge, so much to learn

With boundless enthusiasm of the child,

Tide rushes into each entrance and shore.

Investigating and analysing each feature un-filed.

Swirling and twirling, searching for more.

Turbulence and trauma of the growing inrush,

Restless adolescence changing the score.

Rationality and reason abandoned, faces aflush.

Waves, bursting and breaking over rocky shores.

Quietly flowing into spaces, seeking involvement.

Adulthood arrives providing welcome relief.

Nature and relationships and total commitment

Expanses and environs filling, contacts less brief.

Romance and marriage top the agenda

Hugging the earth with love's sweet embrace

Clinging to each shoreline, feature of splendour

Wherever the seawaters swirl, rip and race

With maturity comes Man's ultimate perfection

The tide is now high and peaks at its crest

Traffic is busy, ships and boats coming and going

Swimmers and surfers there's no time to rest.

Life seems so busy with tide at high levels

Endless responsibilities pulling all ways.

Constant demand and pressure dishevels

No sign of relief at this time of day.

With the tide turning to the outward repletion,

Time to reflect on achievements now past.

Retracting waters revealing jobs completion.

Exposing the tide's efforts, time racing so fast.

The end is in view, tide ready to change

Time to review the efforts now done

A measure of tide's success to arrange

How does it justify the race it has run?

Life cycle is completed and now looking back

All that is left of our tides mighty furore

Is a single line printed in a used Almanac

And smooth damp sand on a forgotten shore.

So think about your one and only life tide

And how you will live it on god's sweet earth

Don't waste a minute of the gift of the ride

And think on how you will judge life's worth.

By Peter Hurst

WITS NoWriMo - Plotting & Research

If you're participating in the WITS NoWriMo challenge in April (or even if you're not), the following links to articles on plotting and research might prove useful:

• Your Novel Blueprint - by Karen S. Wiesner
• Plot Planner Exercise - Writer's Digest
• Plotting your Novel - by Stella Cameron
• How to plot your novel from start to finish - by Callan Souza
• Plotting your Novel - Creative Portal
• 8 ways Research can Kill your Novel - by Lisa Gardner
• Research that Novel - by John T. Jones
• Starting your Research - by Cybele (there is a great list of links on this page)

Remember Witties, if you would like to participate in WITS NoWriMo your time is running out to sign up. Just send an email to witsnq@gmail.com or have a chat to us at Wednesdays meeting.

10th Anniversary National Playwright Competition 2009

Are you a budding playwright? Dust off that old play you've had sitting in your bottom drawer or whip up a new one, because the Boroondara Theatre Company wants you to enter their National Playwright Competition.
There are no restrictions on topic, theme, gender or basis of play and entries can be lodged at any time up until the 30th June 2009.
Go to the Baroonda Theatre Company website for more information.

LiNQ 40th Anniversary Celebrations

The James Cook University, School of Arts and Social Sciences invites you to attend the 40th Anniversary Celebrations of the Literature in North Queensland (LiNQ) journal.

March 20th, 12.30pm - 1.30pm

Click on the image above for more information or email lindsay.simpson@jcu.edu.au

Meet the President

A bi-monthly report from WITS President Lori Hurst

Some dedicated souls no doubt wrote on regardless during the Christmas break, but for the rest of us mere mortals our first WITS meeting for the year was an oasis, after the barren weeks of non-writing.

Kerry Ashwin & Nikesh Muralli gave us a kick start with a mini workshop on the nuts & bolts of writing, editing & publishing. Writer’s groups offer a good dose of reinforcement, motivation, encouragement & inspiration but then each of us as individuals has to provide the dedication.

Our thanks to Justine Wilkinson from Townsville City Council, for making the time to...

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Reminder - WITS NoWriMo

Don't forget!

March is just around the corner and so is the WITS Novel Writing Month. If you are a WITS member and would like to participate, please send an email to witsnq@gmail.com so that we can keep you up to date on group writing sessions, send you helpful information and so that we can assign you a nifty little widget like the one below to help keep you on track.










Remember, March is for researching not for writing, so keep an eye on the blog this month for tips on plotting and how to research your novel. The progress-o-metre widgets will go up on the blog on April 1st.

Celebrating our Successes - February 2009

• Congratulations to Casey Salt, Stephen Ryan, Nikesh Murali, Kerry Ashwin, Lori & Peter Hurst. Their collaborative project T'ville has been completed and is available for download.
• Kerry Ashwin's podcast all Free today has been selected as a highlight on the ABC's Letter Vox. Kerry also featured on the Radio National BookShow on the 23rd of Feb and her photo was used at Pool for one of their stories for the BookShow.
• Dr Mary Casolin has received the proof for her second volume of poems Safron Sunset and will be expecting the finished published version any day now.

Remember, if you would like to see your name in our monthly Peacock Awards, send some information about your accomplishment to witsnq@gmail.com

e-Books and self-promotion

With the recent release of T'ville as an electronic download, it's perhaps timely to look at how you as the author can increase the number of people reading - and buying! - your e-Book.

Back in January, The Shack listed a link to an article on the blog The Urban Elitist called How to get your e-Book read. This article has a whole heap of great pointers including:

• Create compelling advertisements - put something on YouTube that people will want to watch for its own sake
• Use merchandise like a musician - iPhone / iPod covers, hats, buttons, whatever. Give a free t-shirt to everyone who buys your e-Book!
• Get a great cover design - readers will always judge a book by its cover
• Make the first sentence a great one - when a potential buyer can get to the first page with a single click of their mouse, you better make sure what they read is good

The Writers Guide argues that having an online presence is one of the most important methods of marketing and promotion for writers - both e-Books and traditional print - in the digital age. Chapter 7 is an excellent starting point for learning how to optimise sales through the use of social media, banner ads, virtual launches and tours, trailers and more. This chapter also gives some links to organisations that offer professional development opportunities in digital marketing and distribution.

For many more great online resources for digital marketing, see The Writers Guide marketing_howto bookmarks on delicious.

Flash Me!

Flash Me Magazine is a quarterly publication available online for free or as a PDF for a small fee. They are a paying market and accept all genres of fiction under 1,000 words. They are currently looking for more sci-fi, fantasy and humour submissions and will be publishing an all-fantasy issue in October.

For more information go to: http://www.wingedhalo.com/fig.html

A Dog's Life

Pavlov, can you do something about your mongrel.

Look at the mess!

Slobber everywhere

and the bells,

tinkle tinkle,

tinkle tinkle.

day and night.

What is it with you?

Nothing better to do?

Pavlov,

get a life,

and Pavlov, can you please do something about your mongrel.

By Phil Heang