• Life of the Mind

    Song of the Curlew

    In early 2017, I published a young adult novel – Pride – under my YA moniker of ‘Lazaros Zigomanis’. This is actually the name I was baptised under. To provide some background, it was 2002. I ran a football website and the season had just finished. Collingwood had lost the grand final (there’s a shock), and I needed content for the off-season so I could maintain some readership. Therefore, I decided to serialise a story, and since my website was football-centric, I decided it was going to be a football story. I’d already had this vague idea for about ten years, but it was originally going to be based in…

  • One Terrific Lie

    Revision and Genre

    My WIP has long been neglected. It was never my intention. Usually, when I finish anything – be it short story, novel, or screenplay – I launch straight into revision, and keep revising (reading it over and over) until I can get nothing more out of it. Then I give it a break, then start the process again with a fresh mind. When I’m certain I have nothing new left to offer, I’ll send my work out to alpha readers. Their feedback will contain stuff that I either can no longer see, or was never able to see. As an author, you have all the answers in your head. But…