BESTSELLER TELLS NEWBIES TO KEEP AT THEIR WRITING

Australian author Belinda Alexandra says the best advice she can give aspiring writers is simple: persevere.

The Sydney-based international bestseller of historical and contemporary fiction endured 10 years of publisher rejections before her breakthrough novel White

Gardenia was the subject of a bidding war in 2002. Her novels are now available in seven languages and she is working on her eighth book.

“I didn’t have a grand vision of myself as an author or even the confidence that my writing would be published one day,” she says. “I just kept writing because it was what I had to do.”

Alexandra says she thinks of life in terms of stories and chapters. The best one she can share with part-time writers comes from veteran Hollywood actor Harrison Ford who got his breakthrough film role as Han Solo in

Star Wars in his mid 30s.

“I read an article where he said the secret to his success was that he hung around longer than anyone else and I loved that,” she says. “I think it’s great advice for writing as well.”

Alexandra wrote stories from an early age and says, looking back at the story of her life so far, she’s glad her earlier stories weren’t published.

“They would have put me in a box I would have found it hard to get out of,” she says. “Now I write grand, sweeping dramas set all over the world in different time periods exploring different characters. I go wherever I want.

“I think my earlier writing was about honing my craft and teaching me discipline. I learned from all the difficulties I hit along the way. I learned about rejection, taking feedback and making my stories the best they could be.”

No doubt Alexandra would see the Banjo Prize as a pivotal event in someone else’s story. As an expert plotter of life stories, she says there’s one philosophy worth sharing with dabbling writers – that life always rewards action.

“I would say get those manuscripts finished, rework them so the story is the best it can be and send them in. And just keep writing.”