Different hues of writing
Plus: win one of three advance reading copies of my next novel!
Dahlias entered into competition at the Bega Show (New South Wales) in February 2023 [photo taken by me]
Scroll down to win a proof copy of Lessons in Love at the Seaside Salon!
Dear Sunshiners,
For the past few days I’ve been partaking in a Notes Challenge here on Substack, run by
who runs . The challenge is meant to help a writer grow followers and engagement, and I won’t pretend I wasn’t interested in that, but I was also interested in whether or not I could keep up with the challenge. It’s a commitment, and I already have a few of those.Sarah prompts participants each day, and the first two days didn’t have specific prompts, so I decided to revivify a series I made on video around three years ago and posted on TikTok and Instagram (the videos are still there); I called it Unlocking Creativity (I’m still not sure about that title but I panicked - may still change it - if you have a suggestion please let me know in the comments!).
I made the series around the time I was trying to figure out what to do on social media. There is certainly an expectation that authors will have a social media presence, and some of us are more comfortable with this than others, as
and I explored in episode 9 of season 1 of our podcast, Dear Rach & Soph, in which we spoke to authors and Jack Heath, both of whom had decided to reduce their social media activity, Natasha starting her Substack .I was not at all comfortable when I started posting regularly and I had no ideas for content. Now I see social media – and Substack is a form of it, really – as a way of communicating and connecting with people, and I see writing fiction as doing that too. (It also helps that I don’t tend to consume social media so much as make stuff and leave.) Social media also offers a creative challenge to come up with new things to say. Which leads me back to the Notes Challenge.
On day three Sarah Fay started giving us specific prompts, such as posting a quote from someone else, or a photo; making a Note short, making it ‘real’. By then, however, I’d already started posting my series, this time by writing what I wanted to say instead of making videos. So I decided to both continue the series and write Notes to Sarah’s prompt to go into that challenge. This pushes and prods my writing brain to come up with different things to say and different ways to say them, because the format is different each time (although always short, as they’re Notes). There are so many different hues of writing, and this challenge has revealed more of them to me.
While all this has been going on, I’ve been reading We Need Your Art by Amie McNee, as at the time I write this Rachael and I are about to interview her for the pod. When I’m asked to give writers advice I usually lead with ‘get out of your own way’ and there in the introduction of Amie’s book is that phrase. She leads with it too. The book is great – an inspiring and practical volume for those who are hesitant to create anything even though they want to, and for those already making things and suffering from the occasional doubt. Amie’s exhortation to just put art out into the world, not worrying about what people think about it, fits very nicely with me putting out these Notes for the challenge. And it could fit just as well with releasing a book.
Lessons in Love at the Seaside Salon – would you like a proof copy?
Releasing a book is what I’ll be doing in August this year – my seventh, in fact. Lessons in Love at the Seaside Salon is currently a printout of pageproofs sitting in my home, waiting for me to read it one last time. But it is also in the form of advance reading copies a.k.a. ARCs a.k.a. proof copies – and I have three to give away. (Do you like how I said you could ‘win’ them at the top of this post? That makes it all sound very hyped! up!)
If you would like to win (!) one of the three, there’s a little process to go through. This is for Australia/New Zealand residents only.
1. Think of a ‘salon story’, good or bad, of your own. This could, for example, be a home-salon story of a dye job gone wrong or the time your hairdresser made you look like a million bucks before a big event*.
2. Send it to me either by: (a) leaving it in a comment on this post; (b) replying to the newsletter email if you’re reading this in an email; (c) emailing it to me at sophiegreenbooks [at] gmail [dot] com.
3. In the response please let me know if you’re happy for the story to be shared on social media and, if so, please let me know your Instagram/Facebook username (yes, I confess that I am planning to build a world of salon stories ahead of the release of the novel).
The closing date for responses is Sunday 27 April 2025 at 6 p.m. AEST.
Once it’s closed I will write the name of each person who has sent a story on a piece of paper and put it into a hat. It will be this hat – that is, the Fanny Lumsden Prawnstars cap.
I will then draw three names out of the hat and contact the winners to ask for their postal addresses.
So this is me setting you a little writing challenge of your own. See how I’ve managed to tie it all together in this post? I shall resist feeling too smug about it because, in truth, it wasn’t planned: I had the idea to ask for salon stories about a week before I start the Notes Challenge. So it was a coincidence, or not, depending on how you feel about such things.
Thank you for reading all the way to here. I look forward to receiving your salon stories!
Au revoir,
Sophie
What I’m reading: Tirra Lirra by the River by Jessica Anderson. The 1978 Miles Franklin Award-winning book is short and deceptive with it, because there’s so much story there. I’m still not sure what I think of it. If you have an opinion, do let me know in the comments!
What I’m listening to: Hitch a Ride, the debut album from Central Coast singer-songwriter Ruby Shay. I interviewed Ruby when her first single, ‘Sinner’, was released and so enjoyed talking to her. We’ve just had another chat about the album and I’ll post that soon on Sunburnt Country Music.
*My bad salon story is of being cajoled into having a fringe in my mid-teens. My hair is quite curly and fringes and curls don’t usually go together, but the hairdresser waved off my reservations. I should have stayed firm. I looked AWFUL. Like I had a mullet that had changed its mind. That’s because curly hair is changeable depending on the weather, and other factors, and the shorter fringe layer had a different personality to the rest of my hair.
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I read Tirra Lirra by the River at uni but can't remember it at all! lol
Love this. Sending you an email!