This is my third go at writing this blog post. I began in early January and have ditched both earlier versions. Fingers crossed that third time's the charm. Bit like writing a book really eh?
Early in January we said farewell to our middle child who has emigrated to the UK. She's found a flat (moved in yesterday) and is now working on employment with a few interviews (some in person, some online) already under her belt. I asked her this morning how she was settling in and she said she was off across the road shortly for a pub quiz with the flat-mates and I felt a little jealous. It's deep mid winter there (not jealous of that although she loves the cold weather), but I do love a fun pub quiz with good people on a cold night. Eldest (resident in LA) has just had time away in Mexico City which looked wonderful, and youngest is currently indulging us by remaining at home. The kids are all right.
And me? I've been dividing my time recently between reading, assessing other people's writing and dabbling with my own. With fewer in-person engagements likely over the next wee while I'm hoping to carve out more time for bigger projects. So far I've revised a picture book ms, and written around two thirds of a new one, so zero progress on the longer works. I feel like I have a bit of a hoodoo on me around long form fiction at the moment and need to find a way to lift the curse. Your magic spells are welcomed. I do have a few big ideas swirling round in my head though - fingers crossed one of them comes in to land.
In the meantime there has been more news for my favourite little pachyderm. Taiwan has now also signed up to publish My Elephant is Blue. I'm trying to keep my expectations realistic about what this and the earlier deals might mean for the book. I do love that people in other countries will be reading our story. I hope they like it. I'll keep you posted on how things work out. One thing I will say at this point is that I did nothing different with the writing or submitting of the stories that have received overseas offers of publication. I sent them off to NZ publishers who agreed to take them on and those publishers have subsequently succeeded in obtaining these overseas sales (Blue does also have an agent working on her behalf). I didn't anticipate any of this when I wrote those manuscripts. I certainly didn't write with that eventuality in mind. I just wrote the best story I could and that is always the bottom line for me.
In near future news, I'm running my Picture Book Writing Workshop again this year in March and August (information on the courses can be found HERE). I'm always adding to my knowledge base on picture book writing and I love sharing everything I've learnt with keen writers - my goal is to help you achieve your writing dreams by giving you as much information, and advice and as many tools as I can. I hope I see you there.
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