The world of books and writing inspired by the ocean

Welcome to the creative world of writer Graham Andrews. Graham is a best-selling author in the Geelong area of Victoria


I came across a quote by Peter Golkin recently, ‘My two favourite things in life are libraries and bicycles. They both move people forward without wasting anything.’ This just about sums up my outlook on life. I love books. I love writing. I once told a friend that writing was something I would do if I didn’t have to do anything. Thirty years later, that is just as true for me as it was then.

Writing for me is my creativity. It is my expression to the world. It is me ... being me.

Writing for me is about that magical ingredient in life—personal achievement. It’s what I want to get out of the process of putting words together to make a meaningful piece of writing, whether that writing is a blog for a website, a short story, a novel or any other genre of writing. Tenacity is that one magic ingredient that will make all successful writers stand out from those who never get their works into print.

Good writers have much passion for what they want to achieve in life. Pursuing their passion of writing makes good sense. For some writers, passion means being naturally talented or skilled at something they want to do. Without passion, writing is just another job, and I am sure many of us are aware of how we feel about just another job, especially one that pays as badly as writing does.

Passion is that ingredient in the whole writing process that makes us lose our sense of time and place and self. It’s that magic ingredient that makes us forget about everything else that we would normally feel guilty about not doing. When you begin writing, you necessarily become good at it. Skill is something you acquire over time, and with tonnes and tonnes of practice.

Why Do You Write?

Maybe you will ask yourself a silly question like I used to—the question of whether what you are writing really matters. If you are not sure, you will always have doubts. Is that short story, the article, the play, the novel, the romance, really worth the trouble, or are you going to ask if it is even worthwhile? Does the world really need another short story? Why should you be the one to bother with it, considering the amount of time it is going to take you to write it?

Can you imagine the world if every writer, every artist, every actor, asked themselves the same question—is it worth my time doing this? We would not have had the great literature handed down to us from those great writers of the past—Victor Hugo, Voltaire, Shakespeare, Yeats and the other great poets whose work is still read and admired and appreciated today.

If creativity is one of our life purposes, something we believe in because we believe in ourselves, then it is physically and mentally good for us to create something unique. All original writing is unique.

There is only meaning to everything we do if we we make it meaningful. If it is meaningful to us, then surely it must become meaningful to at least some other people of this world? We make our own meaning by grabbing meaningful opportunities. For many of us, creativity is one of those meaningful opportunities.

Cycling For Inspiration

I mentioned cycling as that other significant ingredient in my Life. I cycle because I enjoy the freedom, being myself, being in my environment, cycling to headlands to get inspiration while I watch the whales go by. It’s cycling to a quiet beach and having two or three hours getting ideas that’s important. Writing and cycling, at least to me, seem to go together. They always have. They always will.

I am a writer, because that’s what I want to do. It’s all I have ever wanted to do. Apart from cycle, that is.

I recently moved to the Geelong region of Victoria, where the cycling is incredible and lots of fun. I have identified many day rides, a number of multi-day rides, and several that will be suitable for cycle touring, such as through the Victorian Goldfields, the Grampians, Western Victoria and along the Murray and into the Victorian Sunset Country in far north-west Victoria. I will be cycling to those magical places for inspiration and energy so I can write more books, and more stories.

But I will be back. I must put all those ideas into the computer and turn them into more books.

Graham Andrews - Professional Writer

Geelong Victoria 3222 Australia

www.grahamandrews.com

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“Can you imagine the world if every writer, every artist, every actor, asked themselves the same question - is it worth my time doing this? We would not have had the great literature handed down to us from those great writers of the past - Victor Hugo, Voltaire, Shakespeare, Yeats and other great poets whose work is still read and admired and appreciated today.”