Never forget how important freedom is to children. As a kidlit author you must consider this every time you write.
One thing that’s often missing in children’s stories
One Piece of Life-Changing Advice
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 …
Stop Looking at Me, Oprah! Or, Why Settings Are So Important to Your Stories
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, …
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Please take yourself seriously
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 …
Three HOT Business Tips You Must Have!
1. Get Good Photos. Lots of 'em! For me, this tip originally came from Denise Duffield-Thomas. And then from watching Leonie Dawson's branding reach magical proportions. Get good photos. You will not regret it. It's made a huge difference to my biz and continues to raise my profile. Truly. Everything started to shift and change …
Why Did My Story Get Rejected?
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 …
Invitation to a LIVE call. Plus, Scribbles Academy update and inside our latest photoshoot
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 …
How to find clarity in a muddled project. Plus, final call for my FREE eCourse.
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 …
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I don’t want to go back. Not ever.
In many ways, the world before C19 feels dull, harsh and STUCK. Why? Because it feels like now, finally, after the brutal and wildly complex lessons of the virus, we are shaking off a shitload off shackles. We are shaking off complacency. And ignorance. And arrogance. Consciously and with vigour. Ordinary, good-hearted, fed-up people AND …
Simple advice
My thoughts for today, such as they are. What can I bring my readers that's a bit different? What can I say that might lift their spirits or make them feel less alone? Let's begin with words I've currently banned from this blog: Unprecedented Extraordinary Challenging With my hand on the Macquarie Dictionary, I swear …