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The Book Muse's avatar

I just found your substack - it's great to have found our writing community, isn't it?

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Melissa-Jane Fogarty (Nguyen)'s avatar

Yay! And now I've found yours too. I love that we're able to connect in all these different places :D It's so wonderful to be a part of the writing community. I'm not sure if you'd be interested, but I'm running an editing/critique giveaway (info in my latest post).

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The Book Muse's avatar

Thank you, I'll have a look. I don't know what I have that is ready. I am working on something at the moment though.

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Melissa-Jane Fogarty (Nguyen)'s avatar

No pressure at all, but I'd love to read your work one day!

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The Book Muse's avatar

Thank you - that would be awesome! I know the start of what I'm working on has to change - might have to work on that when I get to the end, as the tone of the beginning is so different to where it has gone now,

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Melissa-Jane Fogarty (Nguyen)'s avatar

You're welcome! I find that my beginnings of anything I write always have to change because when I start I'm just feeling my way around and never get straight to the point or begin at a part that will pull in readers. It's definitely something you can work on during revisions.

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The Book Muse's avatar

Yes - I'm trying to finalise some names for a few things at the moment as well. I at least have an idea of how I want to get to the end.

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Melanie Newfield's avatar

Sounds like you've made an amazing amount of writing progress in the last year - congratulations! It's great to get the acknowledgement, but it's also awesome that you have the feeling of finding the place. Congratulations, too, on starting to learn the Dharug language.

I think I signed up for your newsletter because I'm interested in writing, and didn't realise you were Australian. I run a monthly-ish Zoom meeting for writers on Substack who are in Australia, NZ and the Pacific (and anywhere else in the right time zone). I'll send you an invitation to the next meeting if you are interested. We just chat about writing for a bit, both our Substack projects and our non-Substack projects.

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Melissa-Jane Fogarty (Nguyen)'s avatar

Thank you so much, Melanie! I've come a long way and am loving the direction I'm going in. A monthly zoom sounds wonderful! I'd love an invitation to have a chat with other writers on Substack :D

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Melanie Newfield's avatar

Great, I'll send it through in the next few days.

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Melissa-Jane Fogarty (Nguyen)'s avatar

Thank you! :D

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Laurie Elmquist's avatar

I really enjoyed your newsletter. How marvelous to learn the languages that are in your family. Thank you for the information about picture books and how doing a manuscript a month helped you to push ahead. I also write picture books so it's exciting to meet you.

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Emily Barnett's avatar

This is so great! 12x12 sounds so helpful, and it’s good hearing what you’ve been up to!

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