How to dress up as a Samurai Kid for CBCA Book Week
I love CBCA Book Week although I think it should be called Book Month because on my calendar, it takes up most of August. The 2017 theme is Escape to Everywhere. Imagine the… Continue reading
How I Found Four-and-a-Quarter More Hours to Write – Every Single Week
There are lots of posts about finding time to write. Unfortunately most of them don’t help me. I’m already super-organised, having Trello-ed my life (and even the pantry). I successfully juggle four… Continue reading
Live and Local, SWF and Kate DiCamillo
It was a writerly weekend. On Saturday, the Sydney Writers Festival was literally streaming into the Gong Town Hall. The program included live-streamed sessions from the Big Show in Sydney and local events… Continue reading
Meet My Latest Writing Distraction, Hedghog
This is Yona. Some people say he’s a Burmese Cat but I think he’s a Writing Distraction Cat. When I’m trying to write he likes to walk across my laptop keyboard. All… Continue reading
How to reduce the size of image rich files
The problem: A friend emailed to say her Word document newsletter file was too big and even when she PDF’d it, the file size didn’t decrease. She was stumped. It had never happened before…. Continue reading
To Like or to Retweet? Does it Matter?
It matters. When you Like a tweet, a cute little heart turns red. It’s a warmand fuzzy thing. You’re sending a message that you enjoyed the tweet or found it useful. Somewhere, that makes someone… Continue reading
Mac & Me: A Faded Love Affair
Today my two year flirtation with the dark side ended. I ditched my Mac for a Windows PC. And I’m much happier, back in my comfort zone. I’ve always been a Windows… Continue reading
Flying through Clouds Blog Tour
I don’t think there’s anything quite like the camaraderie of the children’s book industry. Sure, we all have our genres and preferences, but at the end of the day, from picture book… Continue reading
#desktopstories – what creatives keep on their desk
Today when I was supposed to be writing, I just couldn’t get going. I’m not worried. I wrote up a storm yesterday. Slashed all previous word count records so I’m not surprised I… Continue reading
The Week That Was #7
Mostly I worked. I took on a new part-time job. Now I have four of those plus writing. The problem with part-time jobs is they are like kindergarten colouring. They never stay… Continue reading
The Week That Was #6
Six weeks in and going strong. The idea is if I keep this thread going then other posts will wrap around it. So far, and it’s early days, I’ve duped myself and the… Continue reading
The Week that Was #5
Warning! Warning! This might be the most boring Week That Was post of the whole year! I reviewed – lots of series books for the Funday section in the Sunday Telegraph –… Continue reading
The Week That Was #4
Sometimes I feel like these The Week That Was posts are full of excuses. It may be that a pattern is emerging. But this time I have a really good excuse as the week… Continue reading
The books of the future could be made of elephant dung
The books of the future could be made of elephant dung. Truly. It’s an option. You can already buy paper made from the fibres in the dung of herbivores on-line. Like here… Continue reading
Pearls of Wisdom
One of the things I love about children’s books is they often contain perfectly formed pearls of wisdom. You can take them out of context and they don’t tarnish. You can take… Continue reading
The Week That Was #3
It was a solid week. Mostly filled with editing. One more week should do it and then Blue Boy, Red Day will be ready leave home. Manuscripts are like children. It’s a wrangle… Continue reading
