You don't scare me, December....

My cold is gone, the assignments marked and returned, fabo judged, and paid work completed. I have set the wheels in motion for where to send my returned manuscripts next. Possibilities are by no means exhausted. I aim to straddle that wobbly fence-line that marks where the paddock of realism meets the field of optimism. It is precarious but not impossible. And new work needs creating. If the earlier works don't grab the publishers then I will require other work to submit. Not indie publishing, I hear you muse? Not with picture books. I cannot produce the kind of end product I would want. It is important to keep faith with my own aims and intentions. (Tip#1. Decide on the goal and then make sure subsequent decisions support this goal). It is important to acknowledge the skills I don't have, along with the ones I do. So, onward ... (Tip #2. Always make a plan for what to do next. Staring for too long at the result you didn't want is unhealthy. And Tip #3. If the commas you add to your sentence for meaning look awkward, it means you should reorder/rewrite the sentence).

And with the Christmas/Holiday season wind-down about to crank into high gear it is time to give thanks for the year that is drawing to a close and consider the possibilities of 2015. (Tip#4. Always celebrate the good stuff, irrespective of the size or shape of it).

For a change I don't have a university paper I am planning to enrol for next year, which is simultaneously a relief and somewhat horrifying. Sure stretching my brain around assignment questions has made it hurt sometimes, but finding answers is exciting and satisfying. Fact is I have completed my Diploma in Children's Literature so I should probably stop with the papers. I guess if nothing else the bank balance will be the cost of a paper better off next year (Tip#5 - there is often a silver lining - always check for one, and if you see it, acknowledge and enjoy it).

After the thrilling whirlwind of the residency, the festivals, workshops and school visits of this year, the anticipated relative quiet of next year is welcome and scary. The old ego will have to rein it in a bit but that will be offset by a leisurely pace that will allow more time for navel gazing (Tip#6 don't underestimate the importance of navel gazing for writers. Our navels are often where we find our best ideas - please note this is not to be confused with novel gazing which is something else entirely). The freedom to read whatever I want is deliciously appealing. And the idea of finishing off a few writing projects in 2015 is also a satisfying one. I love writing the End. Right, well, I think that's 2015 sussed. Okay December, I think I am ready for you.

Muse on leave...

So, enough with the pictures of the kids. And sorry I have been AWOL. I have been busy with family pre-Christmas (some significant illness, and significant life changes for my parents) and then there was Christmas when food preparation went into overdrive, consumption into hyperdrive, and digestion into warp drive. And then it was my birthday. I would like to announce that I am a year older than I was last year. And in the last few days I have just been lazy...

In 2012 I was wondering (quietly to myself) if my picture book writing days were over. I hadn't had a decent new idea for what seemed like an age. After all, my latest picture book While You Are Sleeping was penned several years ago. I was experiencing a pb drought. Picture books for me are all in the idea. The writing up of the idea is obviously also an important part of the whole but the idea is what gathers the words to it and hopefully sells it to a publisher and encourages readers to pick it up. When you are working with less than 1000 words, the central idea, the conceit, must be a goody. With a focus on novels for a few years I thought my picture book muse had packed up and jumped ship. It wasn't the end of the world. I was still writing. But I wasn't thrilled about it either. I love writing picture books. I love sharing them. And having my name on the front of them is pure happiness.

Well, wherever my muse had sloped off to - she sloped back in 2013. Just a couple of quick visits. But crikey she must have been off planet, or hitting up some exotic substances or something because she dropped off some very exciting fresh new ideas. I just left the door open for her to return. She comes and goes as she pleases and really, I wouldn't like to tell her how to do her job. I wouldn't make her stay against her will. A caged muse tends to produce only cliches. I just let her know I care and tell her she's always welcome no matter where she's been or what she's been up to. Never appear desperate because they can smell desperation a mile off and it is not an attractive scent. Don't go searching for ideas from other muses - then it just looks like you are copying someone else's ideas. Just keep busy and maintain an air of confidence and belief. If you trust they will return, they invariably do. And I wrote two new picture book stories.

We are all lemmings...

Christmas is a season of immense joy and intense stress. Suddenly the end of the year is upon us and despite the fact that this happens EVERY YEAR we still act like a pack of lemmings (who should also know better by now) and throw ourselves off the cliff in a frenzy of what on earth should I get for all these people half of whom I barely know (secret Santa may very well be synonymous with bad Santa) and how much food and beverage can I get through toasting a season that is really all about the birth of the baby cheeses not a festival of shopping. January is the month of regret. And knowing what I know I am still able to be smug about the fact that my Christmas shopping is almost done (although I still have a boat load of food to buy, prepare and consume). I was stressed out a week ago but I'm feeling much more zen now.

As it is a time of giving, my gift to you today is some lovely links. The first is sometime agent/author/blogger Nathan Bransford talking about networking, or more to the point, networking without networking. This is kind of my philosophy too and one I didn't appreciate until the friendships I had made for the sake of friendship and kindred-spiritedness had unexpected and lovely repercussions. The beauty of this accidental networking is knowing that these relationships have been founded on mutual respect and interests, without a thought for personal gain and that the benefits go both (or multiple) ways. Oh, that more of the way the world works was founded on principles such as these.

And if you have ever loved the movie The Lost Boys I give you this lovely and most encouraging post by the Rejectionist - its a little bit uplifting, feisty, retrospective, introspective and heartwarming all at once.

Whatever the other purists say (I am a long time fan) I am looking forward to seeing Tintin on the big screen.

Its wot I do...

I do like a good story. I also like when good things happen to nice people. Here the two mix. Yeehah. Congratulations to Tracy Baines over at Tall Tales and Short Stories in the UK!!!

And happy gift blogs are happening over at one of my favourite blogs, Help I Need a Publisher here.

If I was good at lawyering or playing Tennis I would do that. Some days I wish I was good at being a scientist in a lab coat (or out in the field in gumboots and something hose-downable) or maybe organsing and managing (all things I have trained in). I would have more money and these are more conventional ways of earning it with less rejection and more certainty. I am a bit of a people person. I like knowing things, especially natural science stuff and history of all kinds from ancient to recent and everything inbetween fascinates me. I understand a fair amount of stuff but the thing wot I am best at is writing. And the thing wot spins my dials is ditto. So although it generally pays very poorly and does not show the love much it is wot I will continue to do. I hope you will keep me company and hang in there too.

This has been (mostly) a good year and I am fairly fond of it and a little loathe to let it go. But I have my game plan for 2011 and there are some nice prospects hovering in my near future so I will step forward into the New Year with a nice tingley sense of anticipation. I have that Jenny Valentine Cassiel Roadnight book and the I am Number Four one as well to read over summer. There is baked ham and Eton Mess to eat on Christmas Day and time to be spent at the beach in early January although I will not truly be on holiday till the middle of next April at the earliest. Please, please take care of yourselves and your loved ones over the Christmas and New Year period. It is a fraught and stressful time when the wheels, if they are going to, are most likely to fall off. I am over the whole present thing but I cannot wait to hang out with my family because that is what Christmas is all about for me. Merry Christmas peoples!!! Have a good one!!!!!

Too long a to-do list to do

It is now December here in the antipodes. It is now no longer possible to avoid Christmas and all its attendant business. I have too long a to-do list to do. Lots of twiddly little administrative stuff for my eldest and the exchange programme she will be on next year, things that need to be tied up, wrapped up or signed off before the long holidays start, dog vaccinations, cattery bookings, prescriptions updated before holiday mode makes everything inaccessible and no longer bookable. Hams to be ordered, presents to be bought, finances to be fretted over. And in amongst it all a book to write. I thought up a lovely little paragraph this morning whilst shampooing the noggin in the shower - a hundred profound little words that pack quite a wollop. Now only 31,820 to go - yikes :) (thats a lot of shampoo and showering).

And yesterday I found myself straying from my work in progress. I was going over my Young Adult novel and it sucked me in. I love this story. It has some difficult elements to it - it contains a difficult subject. When I described some of it to another writer last friday she looked aghast but as a whole I think it works. But I must hide it away for now. I want to spend more time with it, to fluff, titivate and massage it till you need to wear sunglasses to look at it. But I must focus on the WIP and make lots of lovely little paragraphs join hands and dance around the room together in perfect harmony. The grass is always greener eh? I didn't love my YA quite so much when I was in the middle of it trying to push through to the end. When it was hard work that made me want to tear my hair out. Its an easy date now, familiar and comfortable. I know what to say to it and what it likes to eat. I still have strong feelings for it. I'm still getting to know WIP and it doesn't always say what I want to hear, I'm not sure what it needs and I have to concentrate on what it is trying to tell me. I just keep telling myself as the story grows we will grow closer and when it is finished I will know it just as well as I know my YA.

The year of the Bean Counter...

Congrats to Kiwiwrite4kidz clanfolk, Maria Gill and Heather Arnold for having their book Rangitoto in the Listener's top 50 children's books of 2009. And congrats to Heather Arnold for her shortlisting in the Storylines Gavin Bishop Illustrators Award. And it is great to see fellow writers Lucy Davey (A Right Royal Christmas), TK Roxborogh (Banquo's Son), Jill Marshall (Doghead) and Victoria M. Azaro (Saffron) listed in the Christmas Book Special in the Weekend Herald's Canvas magazine. Yowza! Exciting and excellent stuff.


Super lovely South island Children's writer and Spinning Gold co-attendee, Jane Bloomfield, has a fab template so you (or any crafty associated small fry) can make your own Lily Max Christmas angel for atop your Christmas Tree, via her blog here. I am particularly jealous of the winged boots and would like a pair of my own.

I have also been checking out brilliant jewellery at Meadowlark and covet the silver fang ring, especially after trying one on yesterday in Little Black Crown in St Kevin's Arcade on K Road, and deciding it enhanced the natural beauty of my hands ten-fold (ha ha). Having spent up very large on myself just last thursday, I know I must be patient before I can shell out for any new jewellery. However I did just get any extremely good result for my University paper so maybe I am deserving although a fang ring may not be the best symbol of academic acheivement. But it does go with the tattoo :)

I feel like it has been the year of the bean counter this year (I don't know whether accountants object to that moniker but I am a writer for children and that's my excuse for using it). When the recession bit, the voice of the bean counter got stronger and I have felt the sharp sting of the bean counter's "no" several times this year. This is akin to running the 100 metre hurdles and crashing on the last hurdle. Rats. In fact, several rats. It is no good winning the editor over if the bean counter is not keen. Not sure what my plan of action will be should next year also be the year of the bean counter, but I am taking suggestions...

All I want for Christmas is a YES...

Was very pleased with myself yesterday as I developed a fun way to illustrate good characterisation to a group of intermediate students I was doing a creative writing workshop with. So pleased I have written it down and plan to use it everytime. One of the spin off benefits of the NZ Post Book Award has been the need for me to examine the processes I use when I write so I am better able to explain it to others. For a long time I viewed it as an-impossible-to-pin-down form of magic, and while I believe there is still an element of the unexplainable involved, I now have a better grip on the structures, strategies, techniques and basic ingredients used in creative writing. Having said all that, I believe that I am still learning and developing as a writer all the time. And I also believe that some aspects of creative writing are not teachable and no attempt should be made to distill everything down into an easy lesson plan with one size fits all. Then it would not be creative writing and we would not have the wonderful and sometimes innovative range of books that we have available now.

I love all the trappings of Christmas (although I loathe the stress involved): the tinsel, the songs, the traditions, the baby cheeses. But I am feeling that creeping frustration that accompanies the gradual slowing, then shut down, of the publishing industry over the festive/holiday season. Hope that I might hear back on a few things before the 25th. I want a 'yes' for christmas please.

I have become a fully fledged Gleek. I am totally in love with the television series Glee currently on, on Friday nights (TV3, 7.30pm). It's appointment viewing and makes me happy. Which is good because I have been a bit grumpy. Been watching Inkheart on DVD too and its reminded me what a cunning book (by Cornelia Funke) it was. I don't think I gave it enough credit when I originally read it. Will have to go back for another read perhaps and then on to the other books in the series.

Things i want for christmas...

Things I want for christmas - 1) obedient,tidy, home loving teenagers, 2)acceptance of any of my manuscripts out there doing the rounds, 3) lotsa really good chocolate, 4) calorie and hangover-free yummy champagne (that is still actually champagne, not the alcohol and fun free kind cos then there's no point), also 5) world peace and a global economic bounceback. I already have gorgeous husband, good health, three switched on kids, loving family, a warm, dry house in a fab suburb in a great country. Thats a lot to be grateful for and i shall do my best to quit whining. I rang the quit whining hotline last night but they got sick of my complaints and hung up. Maybe they'll feel differently tonite. I may need liposuction after lotsa chocolate and real world good champagne. Its my birthday this week. Maybe I can get that as a present.

So now for some end of year best ofs...Okay, i think Tania Hutley is right when she says that end of year lists are like stocking padding but if you haven't already heard, seen or read them I'd recommend these things. Best movie I've seen this year - Dark Knight. Best books I've read - The Boy in Striped Pyjamas by John Boyne, Catherine called Birdy by Karen Cushman, Nick and Norah's Infinite Playlist by Dave Levithan and some woman whose name i can't recall right now, and Slam by Nick Hornby. Also Monster by Walter Dean Myers and Library Lion by Michelle Knudsen and illustrated by Kevin Hawkes. I totally love picture books that make me cry. And if you are a New Zealander who can cope with some salty language and you haven't already seen every episode to date then go and borrow all the Outrageous Fortune DVDS from season 1 through to the end of season 4 and WATCH THEM. These people know how to tell a good story. There is lots of very good reasons why it is the longest running home grown television series ever.

And last but not least have a safe and happy christmas. Hug your loved ones, be zen and relax!

Everything will be better in 2009...

I have been struggling of late with this writing thing. Its hard work, there are other things to do which make more money, what can I do to introduce people to my books, oh-my-goodness there are my children to feed and wash uniforms clean for school for and take to physio appointments and drop off for social engagements and look my head fell off. Again. And then there's the little matter of trying to sell new work. Its been slow going this year although I take a little comfort from thinking I am not the only author experiencing these things. I have so far bought only one christmas present although secret santa has reared his annoying little head and I get to buy something cunning and spectacular for $5 or less for a child I don't know in one of my children's classes. Yay! But not really. Then there's shared lunches, 'Mum it says I have to bring a plate, but no nuts, or sugar or anything that might make us energetic or excited, and nothing shop bought and...a bottle of water? Okay Mum.' At least school finishes for all three of them on wednesday but this is one of those blessings and curses all in one. There will be chocolate but lets not talk about the waist line.

So writing is being partly avoided and partly neglected. Its my core business and when writing is going well it makes me happy. I have given up on getting it sorted in 2008. Poor old 2009. A lot is expected of it already and it hasn't even started yet. Now I'm off to test what the low petrol warning light in the car actually means. Wish me luck.

Crikey pass the smelling salts, its December...

I was a little horrified to discover a few days ago that it is December already. Once the guilty pleasure of being the first in my family to get in the pinch and a punch for the first of the month (and no returns) had worn off I realized it was the last month of the year and all sorts of things were about to happen. For a start Santa will be on his way soon and I am ill prepared for his visit. None of my children have lists and I have done none of the usual Santa’s little helper preparations which I am signed up for like ALL the present buying for our household, all the food preparation and Christmas card witticismry and posting thereof. Soon everyone will be stopping whatever they are doing and closing up their offices and running away to pitch their tent in the place where it always rains over summer. And you can be sure they won’t have replied to any of my manuscript submissions before they go and I will have to add on several more years to the million years it already takes to hear back about a submission. The only possible response I can make to this is to consume frightening quantities of lollies, baked goods and alcoholic substances and then scare the children in the new bikini I bought after trying it on in the dark because lights and mirrors and bikinis should never be in the same room together. Then I will get cranky because I can’t sleep at nights because someone has switched my feet on to roast, the mosquito volume on high which Noise Control roll their eyes at whenever I call about it at 2am even though all noise should cease at 11pm and those sheets which felt like ice in winter are now doing a nice sandpaper imitation. Yes folks it is almost the summer holidays when you are on holiday but no one else should be, so they can read your ms, accept your return of the glow-in-the-dark apron without a receipt because no madam you are quite right that is not a hot Christmas gift which every wife is desperate to have, and open the picture theatre so you can cool your sun-burnt shoulders in the dark while watching the movie of the book which should never have been made. Why do December days pass twice as fast as the days of all other months apart from January where the days before businesses reopen pass twice as slow. And why are school holidays always a week too long? Must go – have Christmas shopping to do!

Jack the Viking: A great gift for Christmas...

Jack the Viking would be great to give as a gift for Christmas. Now as the author of this book I am understandably biased but this is not my opinion, it is the opinion of a reviewer at Christchurch City Libraries. Read her review here.

So the euphoria of the Kiwis rugby league world cup win has worn off now. Today I did a school visit today to the Stella Maris school in Silverdale where my sister teaches. My other sister acted as driver (cos as you know I turn into a chicken behind the drivers wheel) and my writer friend Tania Hutley came along as the Tonto to my Lone Ranger. We played a neat game with the kids of 'one of these things is not like the other' and i have to say the family resemblance is obviously not strong enough physically for the children to figure out straight off which of us was unrelated to the other three. Either that or Tania is actually my long lost sister. I'll have to talk to my Mum and Dad about that. I think things went pretty well, although by the end i thought my eyeballs would drop out, I felt so tired, and I suspect I was talking gibberish to the last lot but they were all too polite to say anything. I was extra excited by the first class who had just the day before finished having Jack the Viking read to them and with their very groovey teacher had been having all sorts of discussions prompted by the book. This is wildest dreams stuff where the story I've written has given them an opportunity to learn a whole lot of different things and taken them in all sorts of directions. All the times I've been excited, challenged or stretched by a book, I never imagined (and boy I've imagined a lot of things) my book would do that to someone else.

On days like this I believe in summer...

Wow, the sun is out with a vengeance today - not even one solitary little puff of white to be seen in that fabulous blue dome above. It was almost too hot for the little white flea hotel on our walk this morning at 9.30. On days like this I believe in summer. It is one of my three most favourite seasons. I think after the last few months I need a mini holiday, my brain and body feel a bit weary. Of course a spot of tropical cruising would be the best, but then there's the whole what would I pay for it with? Maybe I'll just try lots of movies, reading and lying around instead. I'll give it a test drive and see if it does the trick!

I want to start wearing my christmas earrings and get the festive feeling too but November is just too early. Of course once December comes I'll be fretting about the christmas shopping. When Justine Larbalestier's new book 'How to Ditch Your Fairy' came out she did a few blog posts on what kind of fairy's her blog readers had and the ones they would like to have. I would like to have a gift-shopping-savant fairy - one that automatically knew what the ideal affordable gift was for any recipient. The one I seem to have is the ability-to-think-like-a-child-and-so-find-where-they-put-lost-objects fairy. Hmm, not as useful except on christmas day itself. Ah well. Best go and dig out the tinselly earrings in preparation.