The writing process

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Before

Alice works full-time as a lawyer, teaches students and writes if she has 'an hour block'.

How would you describe your writing habits? You write a lot, regularly or do you write a little, whenever you have some spare time?
Which method do you think is the best and why?

During

During the video, think about these questions:

What does Alice mean by 'that's when the ten per cent comes in'?
What are her two examples of audiences?
Why does Alice say that writers have to really know their audiences?

After

Think of a topic you could write about for two different audiences. How would each piece reflect the audience you are addressing?
How can you improve your writing practices?
Why is it important to focus on your audience?

Transcript

Interviewer, Christine McGuigan: Alice, what are your writing habits?

Alice Pung: That's a good question. One of the most important things, and this isn't the case with many other writers, is I have to work another job. I can't be a full-time writer, at least not in this stage of my life. If I wrote full time and spent eight hours of my day writing, I'd probably spend seven-and-a-half of those hours extremely distracted. If I sat alone for an hour, and I have done that, and watched my thoughts, 90 per cent of them are about, you know, purely trivial things, making a cup of tea, going to the toilet, you know, what my sister said yesterday. Only ten per cent would have been the good stuff that you put down. And because I work full time, I know that when I get home from work and if I have to teach some students I won't have time. If I have an hour block that's when the ten per cent comes in, you know. So it's a good way to make use of my time as well.

Christine: You've written speeches and you've published short stories, and articles as well as your first book. Do you approach writing for different audiences in different ways?

Alice: Yes, I do, I do. And you have to do that as a writer. You have to really know your audience because, for example, I'm sure you've seen some of my speeches on my website. I wrote a piece for 'The Monthly' magazine recently. 'The Monthly' is a, quite a very learned journal about politics, society and culture. And it was about op shops. So the language there was completely different to a, you know, the language I use in a speech that I did when I was launching a book on op shops, that some members of the Footscray community had put together. You had 80-year-old women who worked in the op shops, you had migrants who had, you know, got all their clothes from the op shops. In many ways, when I talk to people there's more of an earnestness than sometimes when you're writing for a publication. Books, it's different, you can, you know, be entirely yourself.