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Bye, bye baby…baby goodbye…

Okay…so I’m NOT a mother (unless you count my two fur-kids) so how can I possibly understand what it’s like to say goodbye to your baby when you hand your baby over to the local school/pre-school/day care/whatever. How do you stop thinking about them every second of the day, yet continue to function despite having the one thing that has been with you…not just with you but a huge part of you for months…years?

Can I imagine the emotional trauma of handing over control of the precious baby you’ve nurtured for years to a stranger?
Will these strangers care for your baby like you do?
Will they love your baby like you do?
Can they ever know or understand your baby like you do–all the cute, funny, clever, adorable bits that make your baby so special, so different, so…sellable!

That’s right…sellable.

I’m talking about your book, your manuscript, the precious baby you’ve laboured over for…forget nine months…I’m talking years!

Since handing my baby over to my agent and publishers I’ve suffered terrible separation anxiety and learned something (no…not really learned…I actually already knew it). I’m a control freak!

Yep, a control freak–seriously!  I have to know where my baby is every second of every day and it’s killing me. I desperately want to know where my baby is, who’s looking at my baby, who thinks my baby is wonderful, funny, clever, etc.

Instead I have to keep reminding myself that the people I have handed my baby over to, the people who now have control over every aspect of my baby, can’t possibly ring or email every hour of every day and tell me what my baby is doing at that very moment. I have to keep telling myself my baby is in the very best hands.

Now I must go back to writing 100 times: I must stop being a control freak. 

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Be a shelf elf!

Here’s how…

  1. Enter local bookstore
  2. Locate books written by favourite authors, author friends, writing buddies, etc
  3. Re-arrange said books on shelves so those positioned ‘spine only’ are turned to be ‘front facing’
  4. Leave store smiling

So easy. Anyone can do it.
So come on…be a shelf elf at least once a week.

Print books rock!

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Smartie Pants!

I’m being a bit of a smartie pants probably, and the idea may not go to plan, but it’s my little way of honouring some (there are many more) of the writers I love and who continue to inspire me to follow my dream.

Take Lisa Heidke who taught me about ‘author’s voice’ (which I blogged about earlier). She’s now featured in my latest WIP – The Simmering Season

The heat last night hadn’t made sleeping easy, but it was Sleep-in Sunday today and Maggie refused to get up before she’d read at least three chapters of her latest Lisa Heidke novel. The author had a knack of portraying motherhood and the every day, showing real woman struggling to balance work, family and dreams, just like Maggie. Only in fiction there was a guarantee of happy ever after.

Bronwyn Parry is featured in one of my favourite and earliest works – MOSAIC…

Throwing open the flap on her knapsack, Gina took a quick inventory: denim shorts; a black, cheesecloth top; beach towel; the super-dooper-scrunch-it-up-all-you-like jacket she’d owned for years; her new digital camera; and the latest Bronwyn Parry novel.

And Helene Young is in House For All Seasons, currently floating around Penguin, Australia – not Helene…my ms! (Helene is a Hachette girl along with Bronywm Parry!)…

She’d packed plenty of books to read, choosing one – Helene Young’s Border Watch; a smattering of real life, a terrorist plot and ample fiction. Perfect escapism. She’d have it read in a couple of days. Then what?

Of course, should any of my books (above) make it to print one day, will such references survive, will I have to amend and refer to their 6th best seller, or will such references end up the victim of an editor’s red pen (for any number of reasons)?

I guess it will be a case of “it’s the thought that counts” 🙂