funding for writing

I’ve just found out that I can apply for funding from Creative New Zealand – what a fantastic opportunity! But why did I not know about this before? Why did no one tell me? Arrrrrrgh! No, it’s entirely my fault, I should have somehow found out about it. This is my perennial problem – if I spend my precious spare time finding out about funding, competitions (last year was the first time I’d applied for any for ages), adapting chapters into short stories to submit to writing magazines etc, then I’m not writing my novel.

If I took time away from my novel to do these things, it would actually help my writing – not my writing itself, but what I call the PR for it. And, as workplaces love to say nowadays, perception is everything. This may be true, but it also makes me hopping mad. It’s a fancy way of saying that it’s all about the packaging, and I find this a depressingly superficial and dishonest priority. I always knew I should have been born a century earlier. Ahhh, 1907 – that was a grand year.

I’m off to listen to my “Dreamy” compilation cd (that I wasted an entire weekend putting together – talk about task evasion!) of my favourite pieces by Liszt, Chopin, Satie and Debussy – that’ll put me right, calm me down and put me in the mood for writing some more Colette….

The Colette chapter of my novel Nights in Paris is growing nicely, I’m trying to get into her mind and understand how she could have simultaneous relationships with both Missy and Willy – as well as various affairs on the way. Honestly, what is it with Colette and Anais, my favourite writers, being so chronically unfaithful? I mean, with Missy, yes, but Willy, that big moustached boar of a man? He must have had hidden talents…. now there’s an idea…..