I’m embarrassed to admit that I’ve only just bought a kindle. When it was first released, my family thought I’d embrace the new technology given my phobia for old books. It is a strange phobia. As a child I loved hanging around second hand book shops but somewhere in my adolescence, the smell of old books made me want to retch and soon I was unable to even handle any book with browning pages. It’s a two sided problem  because at the same time I developed a love of smelling new books. Especially the ones with shiny pages  which are mainly text books.

This was my main excuse for not buying a kindle. Plus being an avid reader, my bookshelf is my trophy cabinet. I like to run my finger along the spines of all the books and reminisce about the time I read this book and that book.

Well, I’ve taken the plunge now and bought a Kindle or should I say, my husband got tired of my hogging is Kindle and kindly went out and bought one for me. Here is my list of books I absolutely need to get through before I start any other book.

1. Job: A comedy of Justice by Robert A Heinlein

2. Horn by Joe Hill

3. Obernewtyn by Isobelle Carmody

4. The Piper’s Son by Meline Marchetta

5. American Gods by Neil Gaiman

Woohoo! I’m going down the Rabbit Hole all weekend for a writer’s retreat at Queensland Writers Centre.

Technically, we are meant to be trying to write a novel in three days, but as I was only notified of a space availability two days ago, I don’t have a novel planned. I will attempt to finish two short stories instead.

So excited to be doing some creative writing for a change.

Here is a 30 second gestural I wrote while watching the staff at the State Library this morning.

‘Her head lolls on top of a frilly organza collar, like a defunct lightbulb on my grandmother’s lamp.’

Aaaaaand – done!

My seven week contract as a writer/ reviewer for Yelp is finally up leaving me in a  bleary eyed fug which nothing but deep sleep can penetrate. My left wrist has also started making a strange cricking sound which could be the onset of repetitive strain injury.

Oh well, worsening eye sight and onset of arthritis is a small price to pay for this great writing experience with the lovely people at Yelp.

Writing forty five reviews a week certainly teaches you to think on your feet, to write quickly and articulate your points.

One of my writing lecturers from uni told me that gestural writing is a useful writing exercise. To try and capture the essence of a person in one sentence in thirty seconds. I use to do a lot of gestural drawings when I was in art school, but this was the first time I’d heard the technique applied to writing.

Anyway, gestural writing comes in handy when you’re trying to pull of forty five reviewsa week. I started thnking about stuff like how a place smelt, what was its texture, how did people react to it. Stuff like that makes an interesting opening sentence.

Well, I won’t say I wrote anything of high quality but this contract was a great eye opener. It was the first time I scoured the internet looking for good content – well structured articles, intelligent reviews and opinion pieces that weren’t just flow of consciousness rambling.

Here are some links to my…..er, more passable reviews.

http://www.yelp.com.au/biz/mater-mothers-private-hospital-south-brisbane#hrid:aBXRfGWpaDFB5KKvRK-_Gw/src:self

http://www.yelp.com.au/biz/sizzler-toowong#hrid:B3Wl1VFWLCnEwQYTme0Yvg/src:self

http://www.yelp.com.au/biz/templex-nursery-algester#hrid:prRMjJ2UUw6o3W5q72JbVg/src:self