Posted on 1 Comment

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. 

Posted on 5 Comments

Julia Gillard forces me to rewrite!

I’ve been joking lately that I need to get my latest ms published BEFORE Julia Gillard becomes PM because one of my fav scenes in the first chapter includes this:

You’ve made it.’ Max raised his glass to hers. ‘As of last night, she still has her nose firmly pressed against that glass ceiling — not you, Pop. I don’t doubt she’ll break through sometime soon but — ’
‘You know what? You men so piss me off.’ Poppy tried holding onto the growl stirring inside. ‘She’s Deputy Prime Minister for crying out loud. Does that not compute in your testosterone-fuelled brains that she’s made it already? Why is it not enough to be the best you can be? Why do we all have to win prime ministerial office or bloody awards to prove ourselves?’

Today Julia Gillard became Australia’s first female Prime Minister – and what a speech-maker. As a political speech and press writer some years ago, I obvioulsy did not understand the power of anaphora. But talk about anaphora overload.

OMG – I’m sitting here watching her press conference on TV just now and she just said:

“I didn’t set out to crash my head into any glass ceilings.”

Damn! Back to edits!!!!!