Characters That don’t Care you have a Deadline!

                                                                                                                   November is a pretty busy month in our house. For the last few years it’s been concert and play month, with both boys on different stages and sometimes performing at the same time! This year with Boy Wonder 15, ‘up the bush’, it’s been so much easier only having to organise ONE set of costumes.  Of course, I’m trying to write and finish a book before the summer holidays start in December. We were lucky enough to be able to go to the High Country and visit BW15 last weekend so on the long journey up and back I read the first four chapters of ‘Outback Christmas’ (working title). Sophie and Jack are nothing like I imagined they were going to be and right now as I head into writing chapter six, I’m hanging on for the ride.  There is so much story left to write and not that many words and somehow they HAVE to slow down and talk about the important things. But neither of them are keen.  So that’s my task this week…reining them in. Wish me luck!

The Flinders Ranges

I’ve spent a lot of time in South Australia. We have cousins over there and family ties along with my father’s love affair with wine meant we pretty much went everywhere via the Barossa Valley.  But we also took trips to the Flinders Ranges and I’ve taken my boys there too.

Red dust, mauve/blue mountains, spectacular gorges, stony dry creek beds and the glorious towering river red gums make it easy to see why famous artists like Hans Heysen fell in love with the area.  So my current WIP with the working title of Outback Christmas is set there.

Here are some pics to give you an idea of where Sophie and Jack are spending their time.

The Joy of Spring Gardens

When we bought out house almost ten years ago the garden had been laid out and we inherited 80 rose bushes, three 40 year old camellias, a rhododendron and azaleas. The drought had broken so everything thrived for a few years but for the last three years we’ve had serious water restrictions and we’ve kept the garden alive with grey water and tank water. Pretty soon you work out what is going to make it and what isn’t. Roses are tough things but even last summer they took a beating. I really don’t know how long the north facing camellias will last as each year they get thinner and thinner. Amazingly we have kept the standard azalea alive and damn it we have to as due to a massive misunderstanding it was the most expensive plant I have ever bought in my life!!      Here it is looking like a bride which it does every September/October, complete with the water-wally behind it to keep it watered

Slowly as water-hungry plants die we replace them with more drought -resistant things like Hebes and Lavender and Kangaroo-paws but the one thing that amazes me each year are the bulbs. They just keep dividing and coming up and flowering! Between the bulbs and the roses, azaleas and the rhododendron my garden looks lovely in Spring. I have learned to accept that beds of summer annuals are just not going to happen anymore and am starting to see the beauty in the variegated leaves of sturdier plants. It’s tough though as I love flowers so that’s why I really enjoy my garden in spring!

Sold!

I woke up this morningt to an email from my editor and book 12, Abbie and Leo’s story is a done deal! YAY. I even made my editor cry at the end which I think is a first. No title yet but July 2010 release date. Now to start Sophie and Jack’s story…..

The World of Waiting

As you can see I’ve been blog AWOL…school holidays will do that although you can always catch me on Facebook Anyway the kids are back to school in the AM and routine is returning which means I have no excusesleft so I have  to start that book I was talking about a month ago!  Seems I’ve been treading water…waiting for school to start, waiting to hear from my editor, about the book I turned in a month ago,  waiting to start the new book …just waiting. 

Waiting never stops. First you wait before you are published and you think once you’re published you’ll never wait again, but you do. Often.

My brain is compartmentalised and I like things to be stowed away before I start a new task but the world of writing doesn’t work like that and I have to accept this and just start the new project even though I know it will just get interrupted. That is probably one of the biggest things I had to learn when I got published…creative flexibility, oh and even more waiting!

Community Spirit

On the weekend I helped cook 600 sausages at the boys’ school Athletics Carnival. I’ll be brutally honest here and say a large part of my motivation to do this was to make seven hours go a lot faster  I would dash out and see the boys do their event and then go back as did all the other helpers . We had so much fun chatting and cooking and selling a sausage in a piece of bread for $2…do you want onions with that?  I met new parents, I met old friends and we laughed and we were all their with a common goal of helping out and raising some funds for the Middle School section of the school. I left at the end of the day feeling really happy and with a sense of achievement as did the boys who got PBs for their events. 

Now I have just got involved in community activities because that’s what my family did. Dad belonged to the Yacht Club, mum helped out at school, I met my husband in amateur theatre and then when the kids started at kinder and school it was a natural progression to be involved. Sometimes it gets a bit stressful but 99% of the time it’s a really positive experience. It seems what I know intuitively has been given a name!

The University of Pennsylvania has a department called ‘Positive Psychology.’ It’s all about authentic happiness. What’s that? Well, it isn’t about what the media are constantly telling us makes us happy..thin, rich, stylish etc.  What it is about it is connecting with people. The research shows that when we give of ourselves we feel happier. 

I get a lot of letters about the towns in my books and the sense of community. Often the town comes together for the greater good and the fete in Miracle:Twin Babies is an example of this.  Miracle: Twin Babies is on sale now in Australia. You can grab it at Big W, Target, Kmart, Borders or online at Mills and Boon Australia.

Oh, and if you’re interested, take the happiness quiz at the Authentic Happiness site..it makes for interesting reading.

Father’s Day

                                                                           

Yesterday was Father’s Day ‘down under.’ It was a lovely spring day inbetween the rain showers so we took ten mintues to throw the esky, sausages, sauce and some salad into the car and we headed twenty minutes down the road to a National Park. We climbed 450 steps to the highest peak and surveyed the view. The canola fields are just coming into flower and the far flung paddocks of gold looked like flagss from the top of our volcanic outcrop. We saw eagles hovering and kangaroos hopping and then we raced down the steps much faster than we’d climbed them.

Boy wonder 15 isn’t home this year for FD (but he did write a letter) so boy wonder 11 was in charge. We fired up the BBQ and ate like Kings under the sunny skies. Nothing beats getting out into the bush

The Stress of Finishing a Book

I finished the book, I met the deadline, I should be relaxed right? But I’m not. I wanted to have a week off, tidy up the desk and office, watch a movie or two, read but I just keep thinking, ‘OMG, next idea for book …must…think…of…something…soon!!’  Hence chestpain and hovering anxiety. And yes I have been to the gym and I’ve done deep breathing and I’m sleeping like a log but the moment I wake up, it’s ARRRGGGH!  So I reckon I’m just going to sit down with my craft books and start thinking of a new story and bugger the week off! Perhaps if I do this now the rest of the week might work out for all those things I wanted to do.  I think the only way to get the buzzing elation of being finished is at the end of the contract, not midway through!

Guest Blogging at ……

                                             

Today I’m over at Tote n Blogs so come join me and tell me what you enjoy about a Farmer’s Market and go into the draw to win a back list book! Looking forward to seeing you there!

Working From Home

Both my jobs involve me working from my office at home and both my jobs mean I’m sitting at a screen. Between the hours of 9am-3pm unless the phone rings I only open my mouth if I want to sing or exclaim or hum. I go to the gym three times a week but although I say ‘hello’ and ‘goodbye’ I’m, pretty much just there to exercise so I break up my hermit week with tennis on a tuesday. 

I’m a fair tennis player, nothing startling and sometimes I’m not even sure I love the game that much but what I do love and treasure is the women I play tennis with.  For a few hours a week I get to be a grown up and talk to other women and it’s really important for me to feel part of that group because writing can be a lonely existence.

My tennis team always celebrates birthdays with a lunch. We have a February lunch, a June lunch, an August lunch and a Christmas lunch. Talk ranges from kids to books, to school, to  travel and some gossip thrown in and I just love being a part of it.  I’m just back from the August lunch…shame no one has a birthday in September or October!