Somehow the All Saints Storylines Festival is upon us and I'm not sure how that happened. I'm looking forward to meeting everyone at the festival - sounds like Perth is having a heat wave so that should be a shock to the system after Melbourne's non-summer.

A congrats here to authors Carole Wilkinson for Sugar Sugar's appearance in the 2011 White Ravens and Ananda Braxton-Smith for her shortlisting in the Arealias Awards for her book Merrow. Both great reads - both worth catching up with if you haven't already.

A big component of writing fiction is the 'what if?'
I was driving home in peak hour traffic the other day, when the cars seemed to slow down to a crawl. I could see cars turning left or right into other lanes, as if a car had broken down up ahead. As I got closer I could see the problem. A man, with crazy long gray hair, with clothes that hung loose and dirty from his body, staggering down the middle of the road, flipping drivers the bird. He seemed a little angry.
We all drove carefully around him and I went on my way, but that writer's voice started up it's usual routine.
What was he doing there?
How did he get there?
And from there to the what if game.
What if he was a secret agent, just escaped from his captors, still staggering from their interrogation drugs?
What if he was being chased by someone and the safest place to be was in the middle of peak hour traffic?
What if it was an experiment to see what the drivers would do?
What if it was part of a movie shot in real life?
What if he had just been deposited back to Earth after being kidnapped by aliens?

What if??

When I was young we used to go to the drive in movies. Us kids would get dressed in our pjs, the back seat would be piled with blankets and pillows and Mum would bring the basket of goodies.

I hated that basket.

When the snack time ad came on screen, other people got to go and buy really tasty things such as chips and well who knows what stuff because we were never allowed to go. Mum always brought a thermos filled with hot chocolate which was delicious but not a patch on buying it at the snack bar. Then I grew up and went to the snack bar at the movies, even when I didn't particularly want to, but because I could.

Tonight my world shifted 360 degrees. Before we went to the movies, my daughter insisted on making up a thermos of coffee.
'You're joking?' I asked.
But she insisted and happily poured herself a cap of coffee as Emily Blunt kissed Matt Damon for the first time in the men's toilets of a very swish marble place. I loved the men with their little hats busily working away for the betterment of mankind. The film reminded me a little of the 1998 movie Dark City except with a romance thrown in and without the film noir shadows.
As for the thermos, said daughter insists that it is latest etiquette in cinema entertainment. I'm sure my mother would be pleased to hear that...

You know the feeling.
You're at a school reunion, or the petrol station, or at a footy game, and the stranger approaching you from the opposite direction has a huge smile on their face.
You panic.
You should know this person. You smile back, flipping through the photo albums in your memory which come up with a big fat zero.
It happened to me tonight.
I was in our local shopping mall and a man to the right of me left the shiny Telstra shop where people were signing the next 24 months of their lives away. (Ahh, shiny, pretty - can't hear anything except 'it's all yours')
So there he was, approaching me with a grin, and I knew straight away that I should know him. He had a cocky walk and a crooked grin. He moved with purpose and the crowds cleared a path for him as he strode toward me.
He had a moustache. This took up 35% of his face - so I couldn't avoid thinking about it. I flicked through my memory album but all it could come up with was Tom Selleck, and I have to say he was no Tom Selleck.

It was only on the way home that I realised why I recognised him.
He looked exactly like Super Mario from our Wii game at home.

Firstly - this image has nothing to do with this post. It's just that I was missing it from my blog header, so I popped it in because it always makes me smile. Yes, it is part of the Chasing Boys cover, but it's really just about the image.

Secondly, I'm not ashamed to admit that I put OW's name in the post title and labels to see how much it skews the hit stats. (So much fun, in a very childish way.) But I don't think Oprah would mind - she has done a lot to increase sales of books over the years.

But that's not what I wanted to talk about.
What I did want to talk about was themes.
It has come to my attention, well really nudged something that I already knew and then forgot about, that every writer has a theme that you'll find in their stories if you look hard enough.
Sometimes it's just one theme that they explore over and over again.
Sometimes there are several themes and sometimes a different theme for every book.
Which made me think about what my themes were so far in the three YA books I have written.
I'll have a stab, but I'm sure others would find it easier to pinpoint mine than I can.

Unrequited love
Missing parents
Belonging
Displacement
Fate
Wrong place, right time

I'll let readers figure out which themes belong with which book/s.

How about the other writers out there?
Have you thought about the themes that occur in your own writing?

that's what I'm talking bout!
What a great weekend.

Saturday saw us make the trip to Phillip Island - an ideal setting for a beautiful wedding. Standing on a clifftop, blue sky, blue sea and the sound of the surf pounding in the background while a gorgeous young couple - Ryan O'Connell and Loz Bell, outdoor freaks both - pledged their love for each other in the presence of family and friends. A warm day turned into a balmy night, the moon was full and we dragged ourselves away at a late hour to return to Melbourne for Sunday commitments.


Sunday should have been a letdown (an early start, and were those stomach stumbles a result of too much champagne?).
It wasn't.
Today was the first class of the Year of Writing for Children (YOWFC) and what an awesome class.
The Board Room - our space at the Wheelers Centre - set the tone. A big space with lots of light and state of the art equipment. (And right next door to the tea room - what a bonus!)
Sometimes it takes a while to warm up to each other in a writing class.
Takes a while to trust others enough to bare your soul.
While it was great to see the camaraderie and adventurous writing spirit of the attendees, it was the humour that rang through the empty corridors of Level 2 of the Wheeler Centre that set the tone.
Can't wait for the next class in May.
Thanks to Bronwen for the strawberries.
Just do it, YOWFC writers.

Well, it's been one of those weeks where you look back and think - how on earth did I fit that all in? Thank goodness for a public holiday on Monday, is all I can say.

Had a fabulous time in Sydney at the Northern Sydney Region Teacher Librarian Conference in Terry Hills talking everything e-books. During question time there was a question posed by one librarian - 'where have all the adverbs gone?' which I shall endeavor to address in a later post.

Sunday looms and I have a full class of students for the first Year of Writing for Children day for the Victorian Writers Centre. I'm looking forward to meeting everyone and getting a bit of writing done, so hopefully they are ready to write in class.

Meanwhile my visit to All Saints Lit Fest in April is fast approaching...

I have been up to me eyeballs in e-book information since I agreed to speak at the Northern Sydney Region Teacher LIbrarian Conference on Monday 7th March. I will be discussing e-books and what they mean to me as an author, but I will also have my other hats on as reader and editor. There's also a panel discussion, so should be an interesting time all round.

Just going to bed but caught the Late Late Show with some Scottish sounding dude and his intro song is by Madness, with the line Tomorrow's just tomorrow today.

Which is very deep.

I love sci fi and fantasy but always had a problem with it as a kid younger reader. Something new can't really happen in the past, because it already would have happened, well that was my thinking, and I'd fight against the premise. I am happier to let things go nowadays.

Which reminds me of Groundhog Day. I always thought I would learn to play piano if I was caught in that situation of each day repeating itself until I had learned the lesson I was supposed to learn. I'd also study five other languages. And maybe train to be a doctor. Or a painter. Bedtime now. Hoping not to wake up in the morning to Sonny and Cher singing I've Got You Babe.

(And by the way, how fat is that groundhog!)

Congrats to Shaun Tan and crew for winning an Academy Award for Best Animated Short Film.

Nice acceptance speech by Shaun Tan, who could have shown some of those fancy actors who should know better how to do it.

Truly, the stuff some dreams are made of.

A couple of days at the beach to
clear our heads
open our hearts
and kick at the coals
of our love
of words.

Tears, cucumbers, ants and feasts
stories, laughter, tissues
a problem solved.
a butterfly emerged.
our time, too short
but enough
for now.

Trying to understand why David (Readings) won against the Goliath of Borders in Carlton, I checked out old Maslow's theory to look for answers.

It just doesn't seem to make sense that a buyer, given the choice, would rather access books at a higher price from a store 50 metres away as in the Readings/Borders case in Carlton. Isn't the world today driven by economics? Cheap is good, right?

I had to go to the top of Maslow's pyramid to find my answers. Buying books is not like buying life's essentials such as food or shelter. (Or though, some of us might argue otherwise.) Buying books is an experience, rather like going to the movies instead of staying home and watching the same thing on pirated DVDs. You want the experience of going to a beautifully designed store, filled to the brim with books (but not so full that you can't find anything) with helpful staff who will engage with you in discussion about A book over B book. Buying books in a supermarket or chain store is like buying the weekly groceries. Definitely not the same experience, though if that's the only option you have to get near a book, then go with that I say.

So, price isn't everything. (Gasp! What!) It is certainly a factor, but only one that I take into account when buying my books.

As Borders finds itself in financial strife, the doomsayers are rubbing their hands with solemn glee as they reiterate their favourite chant - 'It's the end of the world as we know it' (now, who sang that? REM?). It's true that the publishing industry is currently facing a major shake up and really it's not the best time to be a publisher/author/illustrator, but most of us are hanging on for dear life to see where the ride will take us.

Maybe they should make a sequel of 'You've Got Mail' where Fox Bookstore closes their doors and Meg Ryan opens up her Shop Around The Corner (or should she rename it Readings?), because when we last left her in YGM she was writing a book and I suspect it is the Independents who will be selling it.

That said, I had my last book launch at Borders Knox City and the staff were incredibly supportive and generous with their time. I have always found Borders staff helpful. So sending best wishes to them tonight — hope we can all hang on for the ride.

Sorry for the Police reference. I could have used Pink Floyd's Another Brick in the Wall but it didn't seem as appropriate. I have come to the very slow realisation that I am becoming more claustrophobic as I get older. It's crept up on me like a slow growing vine, and sometimes I'll turn around quickly to see it has progressed a few more leaves at a time.

I first noticed it at shopping centres. Ikea was the worst. All those arrows spiralling you into the ultimate shopping experience. When I moved out of my small office at work with the tiny window looking out on the sky and neighbour's roof, I moved downstairs into the bigger office downstairs and faced a brick wall. Still, to my right was a huge expanse of window and views of the sky which helped. Now I work from home and my office window looks out onto the garden.

But...

Outside my home office the other day a trailer load of cut wood was stacked outside my window, cutting off my view of the green and the street and the cars coming up the drive. At first I didn't worry, but after a couple of days I had to restack the whole pile to somewhere else, as the panic of enclosure began to set in. How nice of my daughter to help me. Still, I wonder what it's all about?

For the past several days a little black and white bird has been attempting to fly through the window at the back of our house. It goes something like this. She lands on a back railing. Flies to the top of the large market umbrella near the window. Then flies at the window, only veering away at the last minute. This pattern continues until she is exhausted, then she leaves, only to return and try again.

I was thinking of her yesterday as I sat waiting for my one on one meeting with the Australian Arts Council Grants officer. The amount of 'established writers' who received grants last year was around 13. Three of those wrote in the YA genre. My chances of getting a grant are minuscule. Making a living by writing for children is reserved for the very few.

Yet at the moment I am like by black and white friend. Caught by the allure of something out of reach. I continue to fly toward it.

I wonder if it's too late to be a brain surgeon...

was a band, but also the state of our suburb on Saturday morning as we woke to find trees on roads and cars submerged under instant street lakes. I never understood why people flocked to gawk at such events, but now get it. There is something of the 'there but for the grace of God', something of the awe of nature's force and something of the 'I see it but don't believe it' variety. In the top photo, a tree near us takes out road access. In the waterlogged picture (down the road from us), just next to the ute, you can see just the top of a car rising above the water. Much later in the day, as water drained away, another car appeared.
It has just started raining again.

Reports on the news last night were that bananas were going to skyrocket in price due to the recent floods. At this point we had three bananas going through their usual state of wilt in our fruit bowl.
'Oh no!' wailed my daughter.
'What?'
She pointed to the screen.
'You don't even eat bananas,' I retorted.
'But when I can't have them, that's when I really want them,' was her reply.

Hmmm.

She stands watching him, waiting
For the lift of an eyebrow, for the turn of his head
For the curve of his lips, or the rise of his chest
And while she waits...
A child is born to the world.
A heart is lost to love.
A gambler walks away from her addiction.
A friend holds his tongue and leaves things lie.
A leaf falls from a tree.
A shoot rises from the earth.
A prayer is answered.
A book is closed.

And when he raises his hand
As he has many times before
She runs
Anticipation adding speed
To her eager joy
Only to return the ball
So they can play again.

A re-run on Radio National about reviewing has stayed with me over the past couple of days.

I am still left with the question of 'what is the role of the reviewer?'

Is it to give a personal response to something they have read?
Is it to promote discussion about a literary piece and a broader discussion of literature as a whole?
Should they inject their review with their personality or not?
Should it get personal?
Is it a way to fill space, get newspapers sold, get people clicking onto blogs?
Is it about the reader? The writer? The publishing house or the reviewer?
Still pondering this one.