My plan for 2021? No more conferences. No more pitching sessions. Just write. Get the writing right. Get a mentor. Focus, don’t flit. And then, wouldn’t you know it, the team behind KidLitVic had a great idea. They ran the conference online and so cheap it was almost criminal not …
20 tips and tricks for kidlit authors doing virtual school appearances or author talks from the ASA.
Here’s some stuff I don’t hate about our current level 4 situation in Melbourne town. Masks keep you warm. I don’t have to wear a mask when I run. I wear a snood style face mask that I can pull up when I pass other people. The other morning I …
So here’s a thing I do all the time. You know how picture books are spread over 32 pages? And how you often need to supply your manuscripts with those page spreads shown (and then sometimes you don’t, but that’s the joy of submitting your work right?). I start with …
You know those years where you’re just glad to be rid of them? When it seems like an achievement to just make it to the last day? Well 2019 was not one of them. It also wasn’t one of those years were EVERYTHING happened. 2019 just was. There WAS good …
So, after the deep, dark depths of yesterday’s writing session, I got the job done today. Is it good? Don’t know. Is it even better than the original version of the story? Don’t know. Is it done? Yes. Now I’ve just popped back to my day 1 post to see …
It’s my birthday and I’ll write if I want to… Well, I almost decided to sleep instead. But here I am at 5.30am. I put some words on the page, but I’m not convinced they’re the right ones. Yesterday, I potentially made a bit of progress. But here’s the thing. …
Well, this has sucked! I am getting nowhere fast. I’ve pulled out pen and paper, laptop, ipad, iphone on all 4 of these days, but have not come up with anything particularly satisfying. You see the very first picture book I wrote is one that’s very close to my heart. …
I had an idea today on how to liven up the picture book I’m working on. Will it be a good idea? I don’t know… but I’m going to give it a shot. Still not many words on the page today, but that’s not really the point of editing/changing something …
It’s day 21! Didn’t actually get any words on the page today, but I did some planning and thinking and reading. Reading of critiques for a story that is very close to my heart and it’s hard to read stuff that doesn’t say it’s brilliant. I feel like I’ve broken …
Eeek! It’s not a picture book. My latest “space” idea that’s been rattling around in my head is not a picture book. What to do? I’ve written up a fair bit, but it’s a cute idea that is not a book at all really. There’s lots of options: turn it …
Things that went through my head between 5am and 6am this morning: 5am is too early. I’ll just stay in bed a bit longer Alright fine. Busy day. If I don’t get up now, I’ll be running late all day. This is a terrible idea. It’s too complicated for kids. …
This morning I reviewed my smelly synopsis from yesterday, and tweaked it a bit so that it read better and was planned better. I also did some research… did you know that there is a record (on some random website) for number of balloons popped by arrow propelled by fart. …
Today, I was happy to have 2 hours of writing time. I’ll get heaps done I thought. Just me, my ipad and 50 kids training for field hockey. Well, I did not get heaps done. I wrote some words. The words that vaguely outline book 4 in my Junior Fiction …
Today was a stinker. No, it’s Melbourne, it wasn’t that warm. But I was quite productive. Productive about farts. I wrote a list of fart synonyms. That was fun. Then, I wrote a synopsis for book 3 in my junior fiction series. Part of it included coming up with fart …
The empty page hey? It’s day 15 of Nano, but for me it was like day 1. But I got there. I showed up. I got out pen and paper, and I wrote done a truckload of crappy ideas. You see, I’ve written drafts of book 1 and 2 of …
I’ve always been a word nerd. But I’ve just realised that as a technical writer, I’ve also become a (capital W) Word nerd. Get me started, and I’ll go on and on about how using Styles in Microsoft Word is a game changer. What’s that you say? You don’t use …
Last sentence written. Wooohooo! I could have stared at that second last sentence for hours yesterday and not written anything. But today, it only really took 5 minutes. Sometimes you gotta know when to stop. Anyhoo, I also went back and seeded some things. Turned a funny fart into a …
I must be brief. My toneup weights class will not weight (wait – haha) for me. Today I wrote the last words in the last chapter. EXCEPT for the very last line. I just couldn’t get it. But I wrote some notes. Maybe link back to the grandma’s book or …
300-350 words. Not bad I say! Today, I almost got the thing finished. I added a bunch of farts where there were no farts before. And the farts were flower related.Like tulips! It has turned into a fun twist. I finished my new chapter and joined it to the one …
