The road less travelled...

Ran around all week getting last minute things for travelling daughter who left on Friday for the US for this years World cheerleading competitions. She is carrying an injury, but she is nearly eighteen and said "I'm part of a team. I can't not go. The girls with the broken ankle and the shot knee are going." I had a friend who died of cancer at 30 who once said my SO and I didn't take enough risks. We lived careful lives and playing the radio for long periods in a stationary car was the most adventurous thing we ever did in her company. I thought of her when my battery died in my car the other week while the radio played as I waited with my youngest for my middle child to finish her screen acting class. My super SO came and rescued us with the jumper cables which took a long time to work (I've been driving around fine ever since with the thought in the back of my mind that the battery is on its last legs and may conk out completely when things won't work out so well). I also thought of my friend when I was at the Specialist with my daughter and he was giving us disapproving glances for the decision he could tell we were about to take. My daughter and I talked about religion as we drove along in the car on the way to the doctors. We agreed Buddhism had a lot to recommend it; with its zen philosophies and embracing living in the now. We let her go. She's not getting in the car with a drunk driver. Or taking a whiff of P. Like Robert Frost and The Road Not taken or Ursula at Parakakariki by Fiona Farrell I have to let her take the path with the uncertain destination; jump off the edge and see if the wings work. The day before she went I told my eldest I was jealous of her. I don't want to travel to the cheerleading competitions with her. They are stressful. I am not a calming influence and seem to pick up on and channel everyone elses nerves. But I am jealous that she is travelling to do something she loves. I dream of travelling for my writing. In recent weeks I have queried several US agents. At Spinning Tales, Jill Marshall spoke passionately about the realities of publishing internationally. She has experienced some fabulous highs but the tyranny of distance has contributed to some wretched lows. Theoretically new technology should ease some of the difficulties - emailing makes correspondence quick and easy, skyping can close the distance for any discussions needed and the internet can help writers anywhere reach fans anywhere else. But as is everything else with writing, publishing and books, things are never that simple. And I don't just have ambitions to be published in other countries - I want to go to those other countries and talk about my books there. I would love to go to the London Book Fair or Bologna (one of my publishers has just come back from this year's Bologna Fair - there has been interest in my book but now we have to wait and see whether this translates in to any translations). I would love to go to one of the two annual SCBWI conferences, in Los Angeles or New York. I would love to do a residency - to be paid to write uninterrupted - what a fantastic endorsement of the establishments belief in your writing skills. I would love to be invited to participate in a book festival. But for now I will sit in the office at home looking out at the lush emerald green of my garden and up to Mt Eden just beyond and try and write the things that might put me on the path to future travel.