creative writing | creative life
Early in the 1980s when I was working as a nurse, I decided to write a children’s book.The first story I wrote was about a rat. A rat that lived inside a muddy riverbank, wore a suit and —worked in the stock market (go figure). I think it was some kind of Wind in the Willows rip-off.I …
Continue reading "How I Became a Kidlit Author, and How I Can Support Your Kidlit Dreams, too"
Several years ago a stranger approached me (via email). She wanted to meet for coffee. She wanted to talk to me about creativity and writing and the world of children’s literature and…creativity. When you're an author you often get requests like this. And by-and-large my fallback is no. I mean, can you imagine what it’s …
This time last year, (it was winter, I remember it well ), I went down to Melbourne for the weekend. I was catching up with family, having dinner with my publisher, doing a spot of shopping. All the nice things. Instead of staying in a hotel, I decided I try an air bnb, city stay, …
Continue reading "Stop Looking at Me, Oprah! Or, Why Settings Are So Important to Your Stories"
Our society thrives on a covert and highly divisive code: Don't take yourself so seriously. Don't be so intense! Lighten up, dear reader! On the surface it makes sense. It seems jovial and jolly hockey sticks and weirdly generous. But when you go deeper, you see cracks in this logic. And, more importantly, you see …
Years ago, when I was working in kidlit publishing, we used to receive enormous bundles of unsolicited manuscripts in the mail. Bloody truckloads. Hard copy. You with me? So many manuscripts that I had a large cardboard box (the kind that nicely holds 15 bottles of wine...) full of potential children's books, sitting at my …
We had an amazing thread going in the Duck Pond, last week. We were talking about ‘quiet’ books. You know the type. Gentle, nuanced, often deep. The kind of books that leave a mark, make you think. Perhaps even make you clever… Manuscripts (whether adult fiction or kidlit) often get rejected on the grounds …
It's the big question, isn't it? The big, sad, sorry question. Sigh. I have of late been working on the sales page for the Scribbles Academy. If you run an online biz you'll know that writing a decent sales page is a massive job. If you don't run an online biz let me tell you …
Super quick post because ALL THE PLATFORMS, right?? I'll be LIVE in the Duck Pond, our private Facebook group, tomorrow. That's: Friday, July 3, 11.15am AEST. The Scribbles Academy opens later this month (July) for its ONLY intake for 2020 and I want to talk about that! I'll also be chatting about my own creative …
WordPress just sent me a screaming message, 'You haven't written anything yet!' (Their exclamation mark btw.) How rude! I'm going to ignore that and write anyway... A quick blog post on a brisk winter's morning, dear reader. I've been creating an eCourse of late. Dum de dum. I've created several eCourses in my time. But …
Continue reading "How to find clarity in a muddled project. Plus, final call for my FREE eCourse."
Something I've noticed during C19 is how difficult it is to put yourself in the shoes of others. Ironically, when something hits us globally it's really, REALLY hard to think globally. We're all in this together. But also. We're not. Each of us is experiencing the pandemic and the subsequent lockdowns as individuals. Our worlds …
Continue reading "Thoughts on C19: Are we in this together— or not?"