Tips for the budding writer with author Michael Botur 18 Jan, 2021 03:01 PM 5 minutes to read Michael Botur, author and inspiration. Photo / Supplied Wanganui Midweek Author Michael Botur has some advice for the writer who really should get around to it. Picture this: you're on the beach with a bevvy, a book and some Bluetooth. You're impressed by the words or the lyrics on the speaker. You're thinking over the film you saw last night or that poem someone posted. All these pieces of writing that give you so much inspiration and envy? They undoubtedly began with words that went through many drafts. Some of those drafts would have been done during a hot, sunburned summer. Behind what you imagine to be a cushy, privileged author life is a weary writer suffering on a sticky chair in a dark room while it's sunny outside. For example, last night my sweaty armpits stank up the studio as I recorded Hell of a Thing for Audible. But that's what it takes. Several drafts of your novel, story or song have to be written and read aloud when it seems like the rest of the world is having a good time without you.