The home phone rang at 10.00 pm.
I have a few family and friends who will ring around this time, but still that first ring jangles the nerves as I check the clock to confirm the lateness of the hour.
10.00 pm.
The rain was hitting the windows at a 45 degree angle and the dogs raised their heads in query.
10.00 pm.
I answered. 'Hello?'
There was a muffled noise at the other end.
Someone crying? Someone choking?
'Hello?' Louder this time.
Still no response, but someone definitely there.
Usually I would hang up at this point, but something made me persist.
'Hello?'
A quavery voice finally filtered through.
'Hello? Who is this?' The voice was both demanding yet faint.
'Well you rang me.' By now I was getting annoyed. 'It's Karen.'
'Who?'
'Karen. Who is this?'
She told me her name and I laughed.
'Karen who?' She was still confused.
'KT,' I said.
She blamed her new iPhone. Somehow, as she was turning out the bedside light, she'd rung my number.
As I hung up the rain continued to tattoo the window and the dogs returned to sleep.
Now how could I use that in a story...

Yesterday I had afternoon tea with Peggy who turns 90 next month. We share the same birthday, albeit some years apart. Peggy grew up in Collingwood and is an avid Collingwood football supporter. She was a seamstress in her younger days for labels such as Roger David — men's trousers. That was her forte.

We discussed how much change she'd seen in her lifetime. Living through the Great Depression, talking about the handouts of food which helped keep her family of six alive. She talked about the Coolgardie Safe - her fridge when she was a child - which consisted of a box and wet hessian to keep the contents inside cool. At one point I sourced a recipe for her from the Internet - I had to print it out twice, the second time in a larger point size. No problem. Easy done.

She marvelled over this, how far we've come. But when she talked about the climate extremes she had experienced throughout her 89 years, I realised the gadgets may have changed, but we are arrogant to think that we can control our environment.

I live in a cool area in the eastern states of Australia because I dislike the heat, so I welcomed the rain over the Christmas period rather than grumbled at the lack of sunshine. As I sit here this morning, though, I can't take pleasure in the patter of rain on the leaves outside when over 200,000 of our Queensland neighbours are experiencing floods and an incredible loss of homes, stock and even lives.

In February 2009 our community experienced Black Saturday — a disasterous bushfire period where 173 lives were lost. Hard to believe that lives are being lost in January 2011 in floods. What an extreme country we live in.

The black cockatoos are back here for their annual visit, their high-pitched call heralding their arrival. They sound different from their white cousins who have more of a screech, but they are still loud enough to wake you in the morning. There is a plaintive note to their cry and I always enjoy catching a glimpse of them wheeling in the sky before they move on to wherever they go for the rest of the year.
My cousin used to have a neighbour with a pet cockatoo that was a good mimic. My aunt must have spent a lot of time standing on the back porch calling her son's name, for the cocky soon took up the task and often called out his name, with the same intonation, only scratchier. And then there was Aunty Kate's budgie with the goiter which scared me as a child whenever we dropped in for a visit. I have had a bit of a love-hate relationship with birds ever since Alfred Hitchcock...

A few recent electronic misunderstandings have led me to muse the lack of intonation inherent in emails and blogging. I have never been one to use emoticons (smiley face) but these at least go some way to expressing the intent of the author. ie This is a joke, or, I am using irony here. Coupled with a lack of intonation is the careless use of grammatical indicators in emails, texts and blogging that could also help point the reader in the right direction if used.

Which reminds me of an English class where we were given the words 'no don't stop' and asked to interpret their message. As we found, the message or (urgency of the message) could change, depending on the use of grammatical indicators.

No! Don't stop.
No! Don't! Stop!
No, don't stop.
No don't. Stop.
No? Don't stop.

Our Christmas Tree was so pretty this year that it is still sitting in the corner of our lounge room.
Which is why I did a double take in the supermarket today - yep, there they were
HOT CROSS BUNS for sale.
By my calculation Easter is in April this year
but there they were in all their glory.

Made me come home and check the calendar
just to make sure I hadn't missed a few months...

2011 is the Year of Writing for Children with Karen Tayleur.
Well, that's what it says in the Victorian Writers Centre program, so it must be true.

Which means I have been sitting here lately thinking about the shape of the course —
which will be 5 Sundays, 10am to 4pm over the course of the year.
It's an exciting idea for me — to liaise with writers over a long period rather than a few weeks here or a term there.
Thinking about other people and writing is a sure way to get me thinking about the shape of my own writing. At the moment I am exploring Story Beginnings and exercises to let the imagination flow.

See you in March!

Unless you are an Indigenous Australian, all Australians come from somewhere else. I was always at my dad to map out the family tree for us, but he never got around to it and I have found myself taking on the task instead.

I've been watching the 'Who Do You Think You Are?' show with interest and finally hopped online to ancestry.com just to check my own relatives out. I am the keeper of the photos in my family, which meant that I could rifle through the three boxes of photos, checking out any info written on the back of each photo for a clue or reminder about who belonged to whom, confirming what I found online.

I managed to waste a whole day following the little leaf links to relatives I have never met and most I have never heard of. It has already given me a lot of food for thought and raised questions that I have no answers for — yet. Family folklore being what it is, I assumed that I came from mostly Irish stock, but so far my Scottish heritage outweighs the Irish connection. (This is just on my father's side. My grandmother never talked about her life in the olden days, even when I asked her point blank. It saddened me to find out yesterday that she — and her 12 siblings — were orphaned when she was 9. It did make sense, however, of the fierce regard she had for holding close to her sons and their families.

One of my favourite findings so far is a painting of the ship (Marco Polo) on which my great-grandfather was born — David North McColl 1852 — en route to Australia from Scotland.

Think I am going to have to restrict my access to this site if I am to get any writing done this year...

Christmas Carols have a way of hitting my nostalgic spot like no other song, save one. Yes, just when you thought it was safe to turn off Bing Crosby, New Years Eve snuck up on me last night and whammo — good old Auld Lang Syne. I think it must have been genetically encoded into me that this song would always bring a lump to my throat.

We have the poet Robbie Burns to thank for the words. (He's the one in the fancy cravat.) I guess it is no coincidence that he is considered a pioneer of the Romantic Movement and I know that he was a favourite of my grandfather Thomas Burns, but maybe that was due to the surname.

Another favourite of Pa's was Christina Rossetti (she of the nearly Princess Leia hairdo). When he died I inherited a tiny padded ox-blood coloured covered book of Rossetti's poetry — a book from his childhood — and eventually two chair rockers. The book has since gone AWOL and one of the rockers sits in the corner of my study and catches the late afternoon winter sun, a perfect spot for reading. We spent considerable time together when I was a child, my pa and I, rocking away, pondering the strangeness of life. He with his magic roll your own cigarettes machine and racing form guide and me with a book in my lap and one of Pa's strong mints used to cover his tobacco breath. For years after he'd gone, my nan would watch the Scottish Highland Pipers on New Year's Eve as if to pipe him back to her. If she had leftover Christmas pud to eat at the same time, all the better.

Stupid song.

Santa gave me a pair of long-handled tree loppers for Christmas and yesterday I tested them out.
It began with just a little snip here. The blades slid through the small branches of the rhododendron tree outside my bedroom window.
I moved on to another tree there. Same deal.
Then I moved to the front of the garden where an untidy bushy tree had inserted itself some years ago and had never been dealt with.
I lopped and chopped.
Edward Scissorhands had nothing on me.
I found the tree had sent out suckers and started another tree nearby, so more chopping - all to the tune of Bleak House courtesy of Radio National.
At some point I stood back to view my handiwork.
What was revealed was the beautiful trunk of a nearby tree that had been suffocating under the clinging arms of the intruder.
Editing stories are similar. Sometimes the beauty and simplicity of a story can be lost under the weight of padding, cliches, dialogue that does not further the story or repetitive prose when a single sentence will do.
It can be the most satisfying stage in writing a story.

I talked to the DMB gang the other day and asked them to send me their Christmas lists. As usual David was the last to get back to me. He said he had a really good excuse for being late, but he never actually told me what that excuse was...

David
Infra-red goggles (for Spies game)
Tickets to see Smashing Smorgan at the WWW Christmas Spectacular
New collar for Boris
To grow taller than Victor Sneddon by next semester
Ability to be invisible when Gran comes to visit

Jo
The boxed set of Mission Impossible
A box of chocolates for Ms Stacey
Acting for kids - Summer School
Gold Class Movie Tickets

Bec
The Genesis 3 Super Rat Gym from Pets R Crazy
Special food treat for Ralph
A new 'The Book' book - old one full
Pack of 36 watercolour pencils

Rose
New hair straightener
Voucher for Nails R Us
Voucher for X-pensive Wardrobe
Gold earrings
New pony
Skis
Latest iPod
iPad
World peace

Rose, what's the point of putting world peace? You're not in a beauty contest. As if you ever would be.
David, I can put world peace if I want to. What are you? The list police? Anyway, as if you can get the power of being invisible—
Yeah, well, I wish you were invisible—


Umm, thanks everyone.
Merry Christmas

Tully
Christmas dinner with mum
A real turkey this year
Mascara for Aunt Laney
A new tree for Grandpa — new lights?
A laptop (as if)
Carols on Christmas Eve - Village Green

Griffin
A car - new
Something good for Mum
Something for Tully — perfume? chocolates? jewellry?

Nathan
A new hoodie
Paint
money
Donkey Kong for Wii

The wonderful Shirley Marr (of Fury fame) asked me for a Christmas wish list for my characters in Six, which got me thinking about characters in my other books. So, I caught up today with the girls in Chasing Boys, and they gave me their Christmas lists. (see below)

Ariel
Mobile phone plan (gotta ditch the prepaid)
My own bedroom
Cash to splash
Gold class movie tickets x 3
Send Xmas card to Leonard
Make Christmas cake for Mum

Margot
Edgar Allen Poe's 'The Raven'
Mary Shelley's 'Frankenstein'
black eyeliner
black nailpolish
track down portable manual typewriter
summer photography course

Desi
A puppy
Gift voucher for The Mall
Chuppa Chups Party Pack
iPhone
Jimmy Choo shoes
Foot long Toblorone Chocolate

To recap what I've talked about before...

My daughter (see pic with cat, taken some time ago) is mad about animals. For her 18th birthday she begged for a border collie, which she found herself after some work on the Internet etc etc. Said dog is Marley, who took her time to be convinced that you didn't just squat and do your business whenever the urge took you.

Anyway, Marley is now past the puppy teething stage, but she was obviously bored (and a little cross that we have left her to her own devices a little too long) for we got home to a white Christmas the other night. All around the Christmas tree were drifts of white bean bag beans. She'd done a wonderful job opening the zip on the bag and tossing cheer all about the room. We are still picking beans up all throughout the house.

Marley. The gift that keeps on giving.

(I would show you a photo of the event, but the cord for the camera seems to be missing — fodder for another blog!)

I made gingerbread stars today — a first for me as I am not a baker of sweet things usually. I have always liked gingerbread so it surprised me a little to learn I had to add 2 teaspoons of black pepper to the mix. And then, when i thought about it, of course this made perfect sense. It added that little bit of a kick you get when you bite into a gingerbread biscuit which takes it out of the ordinary.

People can be like that, too.
You might first be attracted to the sweet side of their nature, but it is that little kick that surprises you at times which makes them interesting.

That's been my experience, anyway.

Meet Bert.
He's very cute — from his tiny furry ears to the tips of his soft pink pads.
I met Bert today at The Rocks, a famous meeting spot for school kids and parents/carers in our neck of the woods.
I was there to pick up a two-footed cutie, but Bert stole the show and I just had to take a photo.
Bert is currently being cared for by a volunteer animal carer who will look after him until he is about 20kg then release him back into the wild.
Merry Christmas Bert.

I've just arrived home from school awards night.

She arrived late, with her husband in tow.
I wasn't sure what is was, but straight away I felt annoyed.
Maybe because she was sitting next to me in one of those fold down seats where your personal space is invaded by strangers you will hopefully never meet again.
She took a long time to settle down.
Wanted to know where we were up to in the program.
I smiled and pointed it out on my own, then she spent the next minute or so flipping through her own to find the reason she was there — obviously some child with a cameo up on stage by page 57.
Then she talked.
She talked to the man next to her who I assumed was her husband but maybe he was someone else entirely.
When the band came on she was so bored she began clearing out her purse, sorting receipts and other papers into piles then filing them accordingly.
Then she started on her bag.
Finally her stars did their bit on stage after which the family exploded from the fling back seats, busy to get on to the next event.

And that's when I realised why she'd annoyed me so much.
She reminded me of someone I used to know.
Me.

Miracle on 34th Street
Fred Gailey: Faith is believing when common sense tells you not to. Don't you see? It's not just Kris that's on trial, it's everything he stands for. It's kindness and joy and love and all the other intangibles."

The Family Stone
Meredith Morton: I don't care whether you like me or not!
Amy Stone: Of course you do.

A Christmas Carol
First Collector: At this festive time of year, Mr. Scrooge, it is more than usually desirable that we should make some slight provision for the poor and destitute.
Ebenezer: Are there no prisons?

The weekend papers were full of letters to the editor with the 'bah humbug Christmas' being the dominant theme. I suspect that if I delved back into the archives of ten years ago I'd find similar letters.

So a confession. I love Christmas. Even in my most run-down moments, life is crazy and I can't even think let alone get to the shops to buy a present moments, I love Christmas. One of my favourite jobs ever was as a present wrapper in a gift shop as a teenager. I loved that job. I helped people find just the right present, we'd have a chat about life, and I'd wrap the present with TLC. We worked on Christmas Eve until 5, then shared a Christmas drink (strictly lemonade for me, of course) then back home to our own Christmas chores. I understand Christmas isn't for everyone. But for those who don't enjoy it, I say, 'Live and let live'.

Now please excuse me, but I'm off to write my list for Santa...

Christmas holidays are galloping towards us at an undignified rate and they always remind me of the holidays I spent making beds in a nursing home with my friend Sian. This was only my second-paying job ever and we were only 14/15 at the time (I was 14). These are the things I remember about that time:
• we had to wear flat shoes and I wore my favourite blue suede desert boots, which were not quite regulation
• there was a particular lady who used to dress inside out and stand facing the wall called 'Doris' and we just bustled along and did our job, as if this were normal with a 'good morning, Doris' and a 'have a nice day, Doris' when we left
• there was a man there with one leg who always wanted to tell us where the other leg was
• the matron was very strict but had a definite twinkle in her eye
• the three hours each morning flew by as we made beds and I told Sian an ongoing serial about an ongoing boyfriend, some of which may or may not have been strictly true (embellishments always) but certainly made hospital corners painless
Someone asked me once, how could you do such a job, wasn't it heartbreaking? But we were young, old age was a lifetime away, and I suspect our bustling naivety brought a little light each morning. I hope so, anyway.

Before I begin this rant, a pause is in order to look at this gorgeous bookshelf which looks like something you might come across in a Narnian Forest.

Ahhh.
So...

Do you lend your personal books out to friends?
Do you despair when the books are never returned?
Do you forget who you've lent them out to?
Do you have a no-lend policy?

When I was a child, under 10, I used to play libraries.
I know, pathetic really.
I labelled my books with the letter of the author on the spine. I made little pockets for little cards that could be stamped with the date of the library book loan (just like the books from the Sunshine Library).
The only difference between a real library and me was that I never actually let my books be loaned out. It wasn't so much that I didn't trust the kids I was playing with (i don't know how I roped them into that game) but that i had so few books I was scared of losing them. Which may account for why, as an adult, I have a couple of bookcases double-loaded with books. As for loaning out my books — I do, but it depends on:
a) who the person is
b) what the book is
c) if I can ever replace that book again.
Some of the best books I've read have been books I have borrowed from friends, so it seems only fair to reciprocate.
I now have a shelf dedicated to books that belong to other people, so it's easy when someone comes over and I can say, 'Did I borrow any of these from you?'

To loan or not to loan... that is the question.

Talk about your kids coming home to touch base (ie Chasing Boys paperback from the US), Hostage has turned up in a review on the Inkcrush blogspot (http://inkcrush.blogspot.com/). It was nice to catch up with Tully again. Nice to know she's still out there in the world trying to be heard.
Merry Christmas, Tully.
Merry Christmas Inkcrush!

(I wonder if Inkcrush has met the Six gang yet?)

I have to confess that my father was a dog-earer of books.
As a child I learned this disgusting habit from him, folding down a corner of a page to mark my progress through a book. I wonder if this is because the majority of books I had at my disposal were library books, which were already dog-eared and stained and smelling of other people's lives. I'm not sure when I stopped this practice, but it could have been when I started getting my own collection of books to keep. Now I can't dog-ear a book at all, and don't know if I could even if my life depended on it (okay, maybe if my life depended on it...).
Which leads me to the question of, how do you mark your spot in a book?
I love bookmarks, but they seem to disappear into the land of the other sock that goes missing in the wash. I'm sure the bookmarks and single socks are having a rip-roaring time in some other dimension, but I'd rather they stay where they are supposed to — in this one.
Meanwhile... I use anything to mark my page.
My recent bookmarks have included:
hair ties
sticky notes
cinema tickets
ripped off pieces from The Age newspaper
a birthday card
a bobby pin
a receipt.
I am currently using a bandaid — not a used bandaid, of course, but an intact bandaid that I had fished out of my bag when I needed a bookmark. And when you think of it, a bandaid is a good choice for a bookmark. Consider paper cuts. You don't often get a paper cut from reading a book, but if you did you would have a remedy at hand.
Which makes me think that bookmarking an e-reader must be not nearly as exciting as bookmarking a real book.

The lovely people at Walker in the US have sent me the paperback version of Chasing Boys.
The parcel arrived at my front door with a nice fat thump.
I couldn't answer the nice polite delivery man knock on the front door
as I realised I had turned into working from home person
who hadn't even bothered to do her hair.
When I say do, I don't necessarily mean brush
but at least rearrange out of bed hair do.

The front cover remains the same but the back cover is different from the original hard-back version — a lot lighter and includes a couple of review quotes.
Although I've had a few more babies since Chasing Boys
(Hostage, Burke & Wills and Six)
it's always nice when the kids drop home and say hello.

The hairs on my arms begin to rise way before I turn.
There's a shift in the air, as if displaced
and a hiss that could have come from me
but my lips haven't moved.
It's true, blood can run cold.
It has thinned in my veins and runs swiftly to my heart
leaving me lightheaded.
And then I turn and face the window
to see it staring back at me...