RIP Toto the Wonder Dog

Many of you have known me for a long time, so you’ve met my dog, Toto. He was with our family in Florence, Italy, for 18 years and passed away last night. So I dedicate this Blog to Toto and the love and companionship our pets provide. Through thick and thin they are with us. Our pets are loyal, loving members of our family as well as our greater community’s family. Toto will be enormously missed. Here he is, joining my interview with Washington literary agent, Deborah Grosvenor, in Florence.

In other news, we had the loveliest night at our Dialogue Zoom.

Our Art of Writing Craft Clinic on Dialogue this week was wonderful. Writers Zoomed in from Rome, Marrakesh, France, the UK, Melbourne, Newcastle, Queensland, Sydney, Bathurst and other towns and countries around the world. Such a fantastic reminder that our writing community spans the globe. 

Sigi called our Dialogue session ‘revelatory’, saying she’d never even heard of ping pong dialogue before.

Bronte said she ‘liked the pace, balance between talking and doing, and time for questions’ and that ‘the gold was in between the slides and the formal teaching.’

And Moira wrote that the class ‘triggered my writing flow and I’m back,’ which absolutely made my week.

Thank you to everyone who joined and made the session so alive. Your energy, curiosity and courage are what make The Art of Writing community so special. 

Here’s to brave voices, bold stories, and the joy of learning together. Talking about voices, keep reading and catch Jane’s story here below. Love it! And please start thinking about our Creating a Scene class by doing the exercise below.

Some key tips for outlining your 2026 writing plan. Please map your goals. 

Start your plan by setting a vision for where you want your writing to be a year from now. Picture it: your draft complete, your memoir refined, or your novel finally ready to send out. Then begin building the pathway to get there.

Think about what matters most to you. Maybe it’s finishing a project you’ve started, submitting your work, or simply creating a regular writing rhythm. Choose one focus at a time and give it your attention. Too many goals can blur your energy.

Next, look at your week and find the times that are truly yours, even if it’s only thirty minutes. Protect those moments. Regular practice is more powerful than rare marathons.

Keep your goals visible. Write them down somewhere you’ll see every day. It’s not about perfection. It’s about staying connected to the reason you write in the first place.

Build in accountability. Tell someone what you’re working toward. Join a writing clinic, exchange pages with a friend or set small deadlines for yourself.

Sure, plans shift and life can interrupt, like with Toto’s passing last night. So many tears! Am so sad, but I will always come back to rest on the page. You too!

A Writing Exercise to Prepare for The Art of Scene

To warm up for February’s clinic, try this. It’s designed to help you tune into the centre of your scene. That moment when something changes in your story. 

Choose a turning point.
Think of a moment in your story when something changes. It doesn’t have to be dramatic. It might be a conversation that alters a relationship. During our Dialogue class we started work on a scene where the character overhears another conversation that changes everything or reveals something. Maybe muck around with a scene like that. A realisation that rocks your character’s world.

Drop the reader into the moment immediately.
Start in the thick of the action. Forget the lead-up or the backstory for now. Open with movement, sound or dialogue. Step into a living scene. Focus on what your character senses right then: what they hear, see, smell or feel (just like we do in the Sense of Place class). Let the setting and action show their emotional state instead of explaining it.

End with a shift.
Every great scene leaves the story changed, even slightly. When the moment ends, what’s different? What has been revealed, decided or lost?

Keep it short, around 300 words, and bring it to the February Art of Scene session if you like.

If you’d like to learn more about setting up a scene, follow these links:

Join The Art of Scene – Feb 17
ALWAYS Sydney 7–9PM | London 8–10AM | Europe 9–11AM
2-hour Zoom | $120 AUD | Early Bird $99

Mar 17 – Memory into Memoir

Apr 14 – The Major Dramatic Question

May 12 – Character & Conflict?

Join all four clinics for $360 AUD. Save $60 and keep your writing momentum strong.

In more news:
A huge thank-you to Jane Stevensen for sending in her beautiful piece. So good to share with the Art of Writing community.

And to everyone else: if you’ve been hovering over the “send” button, we’d love to read your work. Whether it’s a short reflection, an idea sparked from your creative process, or a piece still in progress. The Art of Writing community thrives on real voices.

Café Encounter, Jane Stevensen

Outside the café a couple of tables had spare chairs. She opted for the one where the woman wearing a shabby Barbour jacket sat, cigarette in hand, engrossed in her phone. She didn’t even look up. The morning was grey and nondescript, the hint of rain in the air holding off for now, and she ordered a coffee she didn’t want. As the waiter went back inside, she glanced first up the street towards the square, then in the opposite direction, checking, taking it all in. Classic surveillance straight out of Day 1 training but necessary all the same. A flutter of paper caught her eye; the breeze was constant and it didn’t add up – something was holding the paper in place. Oh come on Victor she thought, there are dead drops and dead drops. The grotty municipal bin was on the corner; she could walk past it without attracting attention. Scrabbling through her pocket litter for something to legitimately throw away she found the Post-it note she’d jotted the now defunct National Insurance number of the Raven on.

Finishing her cappuccino and nodding at her neighbour who was still clearly absorbed in doomscrolling, she walked towards the corner, with just enough purpose to suggest a woman with places to go, people to see. She deftly dropped the screwed-up pink note into the bin whilst pocketing the white page held in place by a sliver of parcel tape without breaking her stride. The usual fizz of adrenaline made itself felt – even in a tiny op like this one it always gave her that shot of excitement. She turned the corner. Job done.

And then the realisation hit her like a runaway train. The Barbour jacket – she’d been out-surveillanced.