Sometimes, the Planets Do Align…

You know those weeks when you think to yourself: what on earth am I doing, wasting my life on this? It’s never going to get me where I want to go…

Well so far this October, I haven’t felt that way once.

Well okay, maybe once.

But overall it’s been an excellent couple of weeks. It started off with my guest appearance at the NSW Writers’ Centre First Friday Club, where I got to talk about my novel Towards White, online author promotion, and winning writing competitions. There were so many great questions and judging by the feedback I got, I answered them all! It was a really lovely crowd. Thank you for inviting me NSWWC!

Waiting for the First Friday Club to arrive…

“In conversation” at the New South Wales Writers’ Centre.

The next day I was up on the New South Wales Central Coast, talking to the Ettalong Writers and the Hunter Writers about writing with Vividness and Voice, and social media. They were such amazing groups!

Thank you for having me Ettalong Writers & Hunter Writers!

Then, do you remember that Teen Writing Workshop I organised with my wonderful Northern Beaches Writers’ Group as part of the Manly Arts Festival? Well, for the last few weeks we’ve been organising the printing of a magazine featuring stories, articles, poems and artwork created by the kids during the workshop and the printed issues of that magazine Write Your Story finally arrived…

Thanks to Manly Library for hosting our workshop!

I was so proud of all the young writers – they rose remarkably well to the challenge of finishing a piece of writing in a single day.

I was even more proud of them when, on Tuesday evening this week, I spied a couple of them receiving writing awards. I was at Forestville Library because my own two gorgeous children were winning writing awards. How cool is that – I have my own mini-writers! They entered the 2014 ‘Voices of Warringah’ Young Writers’ Competition, which 312 kids entered, and Brandan came second place in the Year 3 category with his story “Scalestyler & the Blue Goo”, while Ophelia came third place in the Year 2 category with her story “The Cave Echo”. Very proud mum here.

The 2014 ‘Voices of Warringah’ Young Writers’ Competition Award Night

My mini-writers winning awards!

I’m a proud tutor too – congratulations Evan Foo and Olivia Bennett for winning awards too!! Thanks also to the great judges for reading so many kids’ stories: Wendy Fitzgerald, Wendy Blaxland, Lesley Gibbes, Felicity Pulman and Toni Brisland.

Talking of awards, and writing things in a single day, I then woke up this morning to the marvellous news that the YA science fiction book I co-wrote with my amazing Northern Beaches Writers’ Group for this year’s Write-a-Book-in-a-Day challenge, A Dolphin for Naia, won the 2014 award for Best Book, as well as most sponsorship raised nationally in the open category.

Me and our completed 2014 WABIAD book!

Last year we won as well, with our YA fantasy Scribbles in the Dark winning Best Book and Best Illustrations. Both books will be published online and in print very soon. Details to come!

Our NBWG 2013 WABIAD book “Scribbles in the Dark”.

As if that wasn’t enough, after I picked up the kids from school today, I took them to Dee Why Library where they had their very own photo shoot with the awesome Manly Daily, who were interested in the fact that three sets of siblings won prizes in the 2014 ‘Voices of Warringah’ Young Writers’ Competition. When I got home, there was a package waiting for me from Melbourne Books. My award-winning story Champions is included in the 2014 Award Winning Australian Writing anthology by Melbourne Books and my contributor copy was sitting on my doorstep. I’m so honoured that the editor Chloe Brien selected my story as a sample of Australia’s best writing for the year. Wow, oh wow!

Award Winning Australian Writing 2014 – featuring me!!

AND THEN, just as I was about to start cooking dinner, a guest blog I wrote for the Canberra Speculative Fiction Guild was posted. It’s all about editing your novel and comparing the exercise to cleaning your house, or car, or something…

Getting a manuscript ready for submission to agents or publishers is much like cleaning your home or car.

Since I’m no mechanic, and we all have homes, I’m going to go with the home analogy for now.

But why, do you ask, is preparing your novel anything like cleaning your home? What’s that, you don’t even clean your home – you have someone else do it for you? Well, either way, the analogy works. Let me explain…

Imagine you’re expecting some important guests to visit your home…

And yes, your home is your manuscript. And yes, the important guests are the agents/editors to whom you’re sending your novel. Can I continue now? Good, right then…

… you want your home to look its best. So you’re going to tidy up a bit.

Find out how to tidy your manuscript like a house by reading the rest of that article here.

Wow – what an amazing couple of weeks!

I guess it all just goes to show that, sometimes, the planets do align. I truly hope that the rest of my October carries on being as fabulous. But if it doesn’t, I’m sure the beginning of it will carry me through the rest, because that’s life – it ebbs and flows.

How has October been for you so far?