My friend Lia was lamenting that her first chpater was nowhere near as good as she meant it to be, but as she hadn't yet finished her first draft, my advice was think of it as a place holder and keep writing until you get to the end. (Lia is a phenomenal writer so I had no worries that it would all come together!)
This is because in my experience, can't write a good first chapter until you are totally sure of what is important to your book and you can't know that until you finish it!

My first chapter is always the hardest to get right, and invariable takes the longest. It doesn't know where it's going, or which of the themes it hints at are going to be the most significant, so it's also the chapter that gets rewritten the most. It also get dumped, chopped, merged and ruthless shortened and mangled.

But in the end there it is perfect just how it should be - normal it's chpater 3 in disguise as I always start the book to soon, then have to find where it really starts. But tat's okay. That's expected now, on my third novel I know that's how I ease my way into the story.

But the first line - that's so hard to get right, and really the first and last line are the most important, the hook and the ohhh. Yes I really need to keep reading and wow that was totally worth it.

This is the response I'm aiming for...

Looking back at the many drafts my current novel, SNOWPOCALYPSE,  has gone through it's amazing to think they were all from the same original idea!

Here are just a few:
1- Where were you when the sky exploded?
2- I should never have come.
3- A bolt of bruised cloud hung on the horizon, suspended between two trees like a promise.
4- I lingered at teh doorway until the tail lighst disapeared
5- Zombies I could handle. It was real life that sucked.

Guess which one is 'the one' right now?
As I do the final polishes on SNOWPOCALYPSE I wonder what teh first line will end up being after agents and editors input. To be honest I can't wait to find out!

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Okay, I know it's Tuesday but it feels Friday. Like Friday night - work is over - my book SNOWPOCALYPSE is finished.
Just like Friday is yay! work is over, but you know you're going back on Monday, I know this YA isn't finished forever finished only as finished as I can make it on my own.
BUT...

Anything could happen!

The, out on a Friday night dancing, feeling is because I am on tender-hooks waiting. I entered a twitter contest hosted by the fabulous  Brenda Drake #pitmad, where I pitched SNOWPOCALYPSE and got several interested agents and a fabulous publisher. So I've sent everything out and am now waiting and trying not to check my messages, or cell phone (or emails) or pace at all. In fact I'm developing the next two books ideas!

The most exciting thing would be AMAZING but even that Friday night 'anything can happen' feeling is wonderful!

So this is my face

A mix of excited and angst!
Oh yes, that was taken at the Air and Space Museum, Dulles last week.

Exploring new cities is an excellent way to distract yourself - D.C. was so much nicer that I thought it would be. So much to see and do. I even found my perfect house!



And the best coffee bar - Cafe Tryst to work in and sip divine coffee in the morning and stay for specials after work.

And even the best bookstore to drink beer whist reading!

Yes, it's Krammerbooks Dupont Circle, D.C.
And now it's back to life,

but in a Friday night reality!

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At times it's hard to realize you haven't looked up from all the swirling dust you've been creating. And when you do you think wow, is it really that long since I blogged, do i even need to blog did anyone miss me or is it like a tree silently swaying, one amongst millions of stops and no one notices except the life teaming on it. To the insects, and spiders, and fungi and squirrels it's like the world stopped and they're all waiting to be flung off.

I realized while checking out my member bio in The Enchanted Inkpot and finding I only had this blog listed there and not even my Twitter account or FB, that I should at the very least write a new post. But what do I find everything's changed!! Blogger is so much easier now, you don't even have to html in your links!

So, recap of a year - now SCBWI ARA, written two picture books, on the fourth draft of my YA, joined a crit group, dropped a crit group, joined another crit group - who are lovely. Sent off some poetry, road tripped around the South West and rediscovered my love of South West cuisine especially Navajo bread, met loads of amazing writers and book sellers, started tutoring kids in creative writing, and social networking for SCBWI and Towne Center Books

Basically, I got into a stress cocoon for a while trying to juggle everything and find time to write and now...I can see the light through the trees. I'm back on track.

The YA I started writing in 2010 and put down many times is back with a vengeance!
The title? SNOWPOCALYPS - why I missed the zombie party.

Yes, that is a total teaser! More coming soon - much sooner than the last wait!

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Gearing up for back to school means a sudden realization that I need to clear a backlog of stuff. You know all that stuff that I was so sure I'd have plenty of time to do over the summer, like designing and printing up a new selection of cards. I began yesterday with one of my favorite owls. In my mind he looks huge and takes up the whole card.

It was going to be easy-peasy. But after three attempts that looked more like little old men perching on a tree I realized it was not going to that simple. Anyway - here he is, the finished product except this one is grey-pink like a snow cloud and the end result will be pale, pale grey like a snowy day.

Meanwhile...Luka has been baking up a storm which is great as he seems to have a talent with extremely buttery, chocolatey, sugary baked goods. This summer he baked; an apple streusel pie, chocolate hazelnut cookies, edible mess (homemade meringue raspberry puree, cream, mascarpone), thick and chewy chocolate chip cookies, cherry linzer slices, chewy speculaas blondies, and orange and lemon cake. Fortunately we have plenty of willing takers as a master baker in a family of three is not the best situation for healthy eating!





So back to getting ready for next week..the other thing on my list - write a picture book because that's so easy right? A few words here a few words there. Seriously, I know it's not like that but I did think if I started at the beginning I might have something by the end. But I've been a slack bunny and didn't really get inspired until I heard Jon Klassen's amazing talk at SCBWI LA.

Here is an animated trailer for his most widely recognizable book...



My picture book is in the dummying out stage. It's got the basic page structure but I'll be perfecting the language over the next month or so.

I just made it sound like there were only two things on my list, of course that would be bonkers! I was supposed to read great classics, tour America, teach summer school, redesign the vegetable garden, reorganize cupboards and such mundane things.

We did do a 3000 mile road trip, see War Horse, visit lovely dear friends in Sonoma, and visit the city. I did finally read Heart of Darkness, and half of Wolf Hall - not a classic I know, but so fun to read an adult book! I taught summer school which was fun. Dystopia was extra special - awesome kids!

This is Monument Valley - I'll share more in the coming weeks, and throw some up on Pintrest!



Alas, only one cupboard sorted the rest can wait 'till Christmas break! From now on it's back to BLACKOUT (previously GLIMMER, THE ICE BETWEEN ICE and GREEN SKIES) hey maybe I should just call it Lottie for now!

My goal is - October for the next draft! Why are you laughing?

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It's almost time to get back into the YA! So, some developments over summer - it's going to be pared down and much better and now reverts back to its original name - BLACKOUT.

below is a list of words floating around my head setting the scene. Notice the absence of the word ghost!

Word cloud made with WordItOut

More news coming soon!!

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Parrack Prints
Not the most subtle of names but hey - I didn't have a lot of time and who knew that if your new company didn't have your name in it there was a dance with red tape required - three spins and some pr? Exactly neither did I.

I have started a new company selling cards with haiku inside - I know crazy idea but, it's based on two years of people - well friends and family admiring the cards I hand made for them each year. And as the writing is such a slow business, and making cards is not, it seemed very appealing!

So, I started designing my pagan animal selection...

And it is such a natural progression. I had no idea when I started how much fun it would be to come up with a concept - design it, write a haiku, and it's done! Hooray. This creative hands on type of work partners the deep thinking, and focus and tortuously slow journey of writing! Even better, as these haiku are not in my book - DAWN IN THE TWILIGHT GARDEN - a haiku journey through a suburban garden at dawn, with added non-fiction notes and a how to haiku section - which is totally for sale and right now resting on various publishers desks (okay maybe slush piles is more accurate!) I can share the card haiku's here!


Hedgehog - how I miss them!

Hedgehog
Snuffling prickle ball,
Searching for slugs, bead eyes bright,
Shadow in the night.

And here's another sample ...
Owl
Silent as the moon,
Watching from the old oak tree,
Sentry of the night.

The animal cards are now selling at Towne Center Books and READ at Blackhawk, and soon via Etsy - give me two weeks then look for it under Parrack Prints.

Then my friend asked me to make some especially for her yoga studio retail space - so of course I did. And I love them , in fact I never would have thought to make them but they were very therapeutic because these needed yoga haikus! Is it haiku or haikus?


These are specially available at Down Town Yoga Pleasanton.

She liked these so much she ordered an OM. I at first, being a heathen, had no idea what she was talking about but I did my research and came up with this...



And this....
Om
Hum in harmony
The scared incantation
I am existence

Which is really rather soothing! So now I'm going to yoga again - something I stopped six years ago, I'm writing a lot of poetry and I'm almost done with draft 3 of THE ICE BETWEEN US.

Coincidentally I was

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When I was writing Fragments, the YA this blog was named after - I took pictures like this...


I spent a week in Nottingham exploring all the places the book was set in, getting all the details, noticing all the stone faces and the fantastic gargoyles.

I know I'm not alone in this. Most writers visit the places they're writing about, whether it's non-fiction or fiction. It's very hard to get those little unexpected details right if you don't know what the place your story exists in feels like. Even fantasy stories are set in some kind of root real existence that lives in the authors mind and is framed by their own real tactile experiences.

So, last weekend was Tahoe - because of course GREEN SKIES is set there, and I need to know what cold and snow and sky looks like up there, as well as getting the layout of the ski runs and lifts and gondolas and what does the Ritz Carlton really look like?

And if I hadn't have gone I wouldn't have found this...


Metal wood sculptures in the outdoor fire pits.














Or this....

The layout at midway.







And I wouldn't have known what it's like to wake up early to softly falling snow and try to drive over Donner Pass in sleety rain, or stop and put chains on and cut up your fingers on the rough wire stands of the cables from puling them around and trying to tighten them with snow-sleet hitting your face. Or how quickly the weather changes on the summit from clear but grey, to snow, to freezing rain, and dense fog, to white out from fast falling snow.

And I wouldn't have seen the pure joy that snow brought to Luka, who is only slightly older than Will, in the story.


So that's why I have to keep going up to Tahoe - and although it would have been possible anyway it would never be half as nice or as much fun if it weren't for my lovely friend Pam Turner, who keeps letting me stay in her gorgeous Northstar cabin. In fact it it weren't for Pam the story would never have happened as the seed started one summer at her cabin when Luka and I were staying there alone at night, and at night alone in a big house my mind started to wonder, and imagine, what if.... and from there many a story starts.

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Happy New Year!

THE FIRST YAY!
So, mine has started with a leap and a skip,remember the haiku picture book I've been working on? Well I sent it off to Schuyler Hooke @ Random House (wonderful guy) last Friday -- yes, that's the first YAY! It's the culmination of a few years work on and off. Including lots of nature shots to try and figure out the species playing in my garden!



This is a California slender salamander I rescued it from the pool.

Each haiku took a long time,getting the syllables to say exactly the right thing, suggest the right tone, create the right mood, then there were rewrites etc. even sketches to see how all the creatures related to each other, and of course lots of time spent poking around the garden!

So, it feels wonderful to have sent it away - the best package I could do, and whatever happens to it I'm pretty proud of it. It feels like it's become it's own thing and I've sent it off into the world. Who knows what will happen now? I'll keep you posted!







THE SECOND YAY?



My friend Veronica Rossi's book came out and she had a book launch party at Rackstraw Books, Danville. It was fab! So packed with people - and what people, Eric Elfman, Lia Keyes, Ellen Hopkins, the YA Muses of course! and so many others there was barely room inside. Gorgeous excited wonderful event - and her book UNDER THE NEVER SKIES is racing up the charts and being made into a movie as we speak! See dreams do come true - you just have to work your butt off first!








THE THIRD YAY!
I'm off to see Laura Marling with my mate Karen and she's playing second fiddle to Andrew Bird, (Laura not Karen!) - know him? I didn't either BUT when we got the tickets they gave us some free music and it's fab - u - lous!! So new music yay! Here's a snippet - and with that I bid you adieu - got some serious revising to do on my Tahoe novel...

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WARNING CONTAINS SOME SPOILERS BUT REALLY ONLY FROM THE FIRST PAGE



So back again and for my wonderful Adults Read Kids Books club - I am rereading A Monster Calls by Patrick Ness. We read the cream of the crop, all possible Newbery Award contenders. I've read a lot of comments about it recently from bloggers I really respect like Jonathan Hunt's, Heavy Medal and Fuse 8 , written by Betsy Bird.

To be honest I expected to like it because I love Patrick Ness's CHAOS WALKING trilogy, The Knife of Never Letting Go, (first book I've ever thrown across the room in a fit at the cliff hanger ending!) The Ask and the Answer, and Monsters of Men. I also had the amazing good luck to meet his US editor - Kaylan Adair at Candlewick - what a gem! It is one of my life's ambitions for her to be my editor - I'm working on it Kaylan - seriously!

When I first read A Monster Calls, I found it almost unbearable in its portrayal of grief, how it clutched at you as you tried to come to terms with something that may or may not be inevitable. My good friend Grace - whom I wrote about earlier in the year, was suffering through chemo in her fight against never ending leukemia as I read this. She died this July. I was pretty raw emotionally.

Connor, the hero of the story is coming to terms with his mother dying. In a word it's bleak. But it is also so tightly written, so magical, so filled with a fabular, surreal dream like quality, that even though I found it gut wrenching, I also loved it.

As I said at the beginning, I'm rereading it and I am stunned by the writing, really.
It's so tightly constructed from the very first sentence...

'The Monster showed up just after midnight. As they do.'

...you know what you're up against. Yet, at the same time there's that tone of weary resignation - 'as they do', don't they always, seen it all before.

In that first short page (only 17 lines) we find out that his dad is unreliable and living somewhere else, Connor wouldn't ever tell his grandma, or his mum, 'obviously' implying the nightmare has something to do with her, or at least is closely connected to her. He feels no support from school and the end sentence, on the first page:

'Absolutely not.' implies he's a) a loner, b) resolute and c) these feelings are nothing new - okay that's my jump - but there's no exclamation mark so it's very level headed, a deliberately strong statement set out on its own like that.

It is a master class of show don't tell. What seem like tiny details, single word choices, lay out the whole story. Darkness, wind, screaming, building up the dramatic tension.

The hook is on line seven - it pulls you through, right to the very end. And even though you know it was sort of inevitable, it is still a shock - which totally mirrors Connor's journey

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A dreamy video - I rediscovered The Real Tuesday Weld today whilst looking for musical Xmas gifts for far flung family members - love this and this...



Which despite being about rain is to me pretty Christmassy!

And here's a gorgeous room with a view..



Despite what you might think from this picture, I experienced pouring rain in Barbados last week - luckily only for an afternoon amazing torrents though turned the Holetown roads into rivers! So as there are no sidewalks anyway we traveled back to Paynes Bay and our hotel by Rasta Bus.

BTW a Rasta bus is bright yellow costs $2 Bajan dollars to anywhere and plays loud reggae music and is normally crammed.

We were only there for four full days, enough time, to get lost on North Bay, see a green monkey, swim with the turtles, eat flying fish and enjoy the warm Caribbean ocean!

I also became addicted to Sudoku and rum punch. Now back to life back to reality...
which is haiku with a novel coming up!

Book talk ----

In case you've been following the Newbery chatter, my bets are on: Amelia Lost , A Monster Calls and, Bluefish as a long but deserving shot. Read them go on I dare ya! Then tell me what you think. For a real up to date knowledgeable Newbery insider blog I recommend you visit here...HeavyMedal a Newbery Book blog from the School Library Journal.

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So, yes, two posts in a month, I must be feeling creative. Do you remember way back on Nov 1st when I said I was doing the NANOWRIMO? Well...it's stopped. I realized unlike many fabulous writers I am unable to write several genres at the same time. It's all or nothing and right now I am completely submerged in DAWN IN THE HIDDEN GARDEN (new title!).



I spent the whole weekend writing in Tahoe, with some fabulous writers, Anne Reilly, Lynn Hazen , Ellen Yeomans , and Connie Goldsmith , as guests of the lovely (and multi-talented - you should taste her cocktails!) Pam Turner. A blissful weekend given over to writing walking and critiquing, meeting new people and exchanging ideas.

I feel totally renewed and invigorated. Those amazing peeps were able to push me to new heights, which is what good critiquing is all about!

Now every time I try to think of something else, little poems sneak up on me, or I find myself looking very carefully at nature. Even walking or running I'll see something and think ah ha! Like this morning while running I saw a squirrel which darted up the tree running in spirals and I thought - ha- it skitters not scrabbles, and I'm running around the sports park making up the haiku in my head counting off the syllables with my fingers looking remarkably similar to a first grader doing math!



Later today while trying to fix an elusive worm haiku, I did some garden chores, I know yawn, yawn. I unfolded this piece of blue plastic that we use when we spray paint things - mostly silver, you know usual stuff - but then as it came undone a HUGE lizard darted out, freaking me and Mimi - me because no one expects a 12 inch lizard to be hiding in a tarp, Mimi because it was an animal running at her! It was seriously gorgeous and easily eluded Mimi's feeble huntress efforts as it darted for the rosemary bush.

So, of course there will be a lizard haiku now! The only worry I have about all this rhyme obsession is how much I enjoy it and how the YA I'm working on is disappearing into the background of my mind like a mist covered shadow.

What am I reading? 1Q84, Fracture, The Scorpio Races , Why we Broke Up and Across the Universe . I just finished Blue Fish with Luka - AM- AZ - ING!!!! So sparse and true,
to me a definite Newbery contender up there with A Monster Calls.

And that is all!

Later gator!

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So, I did it!! WOOT! WOOT! draft number 2 of Lottie, now called 'Green Skies,' that's my favourite title so far. It is still a mess, but it's my 278 page 78k word mess and it's coming together.

So that shoved away it's NOV 1st - NANOWRMO - or Write a Novel in a Month, month. I've just started mine and realize I'm going to be listening to a heap of Velvet Underground and Lou Reed while I write it. Another YA of course, and that's all I'm prepared to say.

I'm only writing it for one or two hours a day the rest of my work time is for my haiku pb which has just got some great constructive criticism from Schuyler Hooke - senior editor at Random house - who apart from having great taste, of course, is the smartest, funniest, sweetest guy you'll ever meet!

So few posts this month, I'll just pop in every now and then and share progress, music and random thoughts!

Oh, and I did have the amazing good fortune to run into Veronica Rossi, (and grab an arc of her new YA Under the Never Sky), Katherine Longshore and Thalia Vance - who are 3/5 of YA MUSES!

We were all at The NCIBA trade show in Oakland, where I also got to listen to the multi-talented Brain Selznick and see his amazing art!




AND... a sneak preview of his forthcoming movie - okay it's actually directed by Martin Scorsese, but based on Brian's book, THE INVENTION OF HUGO CABRET! I'm definitely taking Luka to see this!

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Seaside Breaks

I have been spending a lot of time at Half Moon Bay recently, there's something about watching the ocean that's strangely calming, accentuated by Luka and his friends frantic actions, digging, running around the shore and jumping into the ocean even if it is minus shouldn't-be-alive-degrees.

Watching kids be kids with no clean up involved is heaven, especially with good company! The first time, my friend, Jenni, took us to this totally cool restaurant at a mini airport. This Sunday another friend told me about the sand dollars she finds here and there they were right at our feet! Amazing.

They always look to me like someone came along and wistfully sketched in the markings.

In-between weekend beach dates I've been writing hard. It's all coming together, yay! In fact I'm so motivated that I am actually going to write a new novel in November, while this draft of Black Out, breathes in a draw somewhere. 'Course that's as long as I get this draft finished by Oct 31st.

Who's with me?Lia Keyes for one, she has a brilliant website: www.liakeyes.com with loads of useful writer tips plus links to Plot Whisperer and Story Fix Nail your NaNoWrMo! and.... no really you have to go check out Lia's site!

MONEYBALL



Last summer Luka and I decided to tick 'make a movie with Brad Pitt' off our bucket list and were extra's in MONEYBALL! Yes, seriously, see if you can spot us in the blurred crowd! (I'm wearing a red jacket, Luka has violently blond hair!) It was super fun and we did get to see Brad Pitt, Angelina Jolie, and their kids, as well as Philip Seymor Hoffman, Johna Hill and Robin Wright. We went to see it of course, didn't spot ourselves as we got too involved watching the movie!

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Okay, so it isn't quite - but it's so close! How did autumn sneak up like that?

If you want a spooky YA read try my friend Gretchen McNeil's debut - POSSESS, seriously fun read and very atmospheric, located in SF foggy Sunset district and oozing with demon's Catholicism and general exorcist mayhem with a great kick-ass girl protagonist.

I finally got to meet Gretchen at Books Inc. Van Ness, SF last week - what a treat especially with the bonus of meeting a bunch of other very cool writers too.

One of whom has a debut book coming out next year having got her agent and editor through the SCBWI Mills conference last year! Yes, I invited that agent and editor so pleased it worked out for them all. So there wonderful things can and do happen!

So congrats Tamara Ireland Stone - (isn't that a wonderful name?) can't wait to read your debut YA, TIME BETWEEN US.

And me what have I been doing since I declared my amazing progress? I had a whim, that took over three days of thoughts and actions and twirled itself around and became something real - dream to reality in three days!! Nothing to do with writing except it will be amazing - more later - yes I am a tease.

So, writing, a non starter of a week, but tomorrow = vast amounts of re-energized progress I seriously promise you!

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What is it about bird song that shoots such joy through your heart? This English one even makes me feel homesick!!

I am busy researching the Contents content for my Haiku Picture Book - Dawn to Dusk in the Forgotten Garden. It's so much fun to get back to poetry and nature again it feels like I'm on a writing vacation - in the bus man's holiday sense.

I guess it's because my WIP Young Adult book is getting into the gnarly stage both in terms of twisting the plot into a coherent story and because of the angst level the main protagonist is facing.

I took some time out yesterday and visited Towne Center Books with my friend Anne, for an author coffee event with crime writer Catriona McPherson , promoting her new book DANDY GILVER AND THE PROPER TREATMENT OF BLOOD STAINS.

Yes, she is Scottish, a recent implant to California. She was a hoot, really fun to hang out with, great writer, full of very funny tales. And it totally took me out of my week of writing angst. There's that word again!

One thing she said really took root in my mind - what is it you like to do?

Which made me think of my first ten pages struggle and how much I did not like sharing the first ten pages of an unfinished novel whose direction I was unsure of, whose themes were only partially baked. And how much I did love writing poetry, so I had my aha moment - why not send off my unsold but completed haiku picture book instead.

Oh, the relief! Now at least I'll find out why it's not selling, maybe how to fix it and if I'm totally lucky a miracle will happen and an editor will actually buy it.

The first ten pages are for a professional critique at this event - SCBWI Fall Conference @ Mills College, Oakland, CA.

It will be wonderful - I know because I hired the speakers! Two editors, two agents, two awesome writers = one fabulous day! There are still a smattering of tickets left, but you'd better run! Tickets and more info here.

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My fellow inkies book comes out TODAY!!! I got a sneak preview and it's wonderful, lyrical, beautifully crafted, skillful world building and inventive characters and can't get the image of the black flower stain out of my head! Seriously you should read it - if you want to know more I interviewed Lena Coakley the author and it's up on today's Enchanted Inkpot - so go check it out!

I realized I have become a little obsessed by travel lately taking every small writing break to search the internet for good deals to Miami, Boston, D.C., Rome and London - pretty eclectic mix! I wonder while we're end up because we're gong somewhere soon i can feel it in my fingertips.

So, school has started and so has a new phase - for me and Luka both - & so far it's brilliant. His first lesson is at 7:30 and he gets himself there, so a quick run then a full days work for me, I can literately feel my inner writer unfurling. Making great headway with this first rewrite, not feeling too hassled to hurry either as my agent has just gone on maternity leave!

I found this very cool short story by Neil Gaiman - click here - which made me want to write a flood of short stories that are exactly 247 words long. Fortunately there's a site for that! 247 Tales which run competitions and everything!

And while I was searching for those links for you I found this...Cat Clarkes Top Ten Books Of Teens Behaving Badly!

Come on who's your favorite badly behaved teen character? I'd have to agree Frankie Laudau-Banks, from the Disreputable History of Frankie Laudau-Banks, by E Lockhart pretty much rocks, but the kids in Ashes take some beating!

Still I think the UK version of 'Skins' is the best teen TV show to look for inspiration when you need some stung out teens against a good music backdrop and the 'Inbetweeners' for just regular goof ball, bored in suburbia teens.

And for realistic younger kids there's the fantastic 'Outnumbered' - simply classic!

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What is it about Sunflowers that you can't help but smile when you see one - go on I dare you stand in front of a sunflower and DON"T smile!

So, way back in April after New Zealand (see previous blogs) I planted what looked like a very sad little garden BUT... it grew!! It has giant sunflowers pounds of courgettes (zucchinis) yummy golden spuds, yellow and green beans, tomatoes and aubergine (eggplant)!

See...
Yes, those are little lettuces - unfortunately I'm the only one who likes them!

These are the creatures of my garden...

Mimi the nutter who likes to tie herself up in knots getting her long lead stuck just about everywhere while I write at the patio table.

These creatures are much less demanding...


Now school is here and you know what that means, back to full time writing and high temperatures - today 100 degrees. I am working on my new regiment. No choc or wine during the week, running three times, gym twice and writing/revising like a fiend everyday! Today Tahoe & Katrina research, tomorrow goal setting and the first ten pages rewrite. Sleeves rolled up and I'm off!

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Grace, Cameron and me, preparing our bras for the cause!

Sitting balanced on top of a worn out picnic basket, besides a black top that I never wear, that stubbornly insists it needs ironing anyway, rests a white handkerchief.

This time, two weeks ago, I was clutching it, mopping up stray tears. It was loaned in that timeless gentlemanly like fashion of passing to a woman who finds herself, despite her stoic Englishness, weeping, then laughing then weeping, in waves really and often both at the same time. You see this was "Grace Mina Navalta's memorial service, and Grace meant the world to me.

I think in retrospect this half year of piddling about writing and not and being so easily diverted with newspaper articles and research and anything really, but always being ready to call Grace and chat with Grace and laugh at Grace was because she needed me and I needed her.

She always had a funny story that she just had to tell me, and even at the end when the calls and visits were more philosophical meaning of life, family and what if and can I share this with you type conversations, where I'd listen and try to help negotiate the way through life when we're handed some very tough cards to deal with, I'd look forward to those calls.

I was not ready for the last call.

My last call to Grace was a voice message that said something like..."Hey, Grace I know my last call was bonkers, feel free to ignore it, hope you're feeling okay. I know this is all horrid but chin up and all that crap."

She would have laughed. But instead her sister called me back on Grace's phone half an hour later to tell me Grace was in hospital with her family around her, and to expect the worse soon. No, I was not expecting a call like that.

Is it a coincidence that the keyring, green with little gold flowers, that Grace insisted on me taking fell off my key chain that day?

When I went to visit her grave, a week later, I made a crack about inadvertently flashing Grace in my low riding jeans as Cameron and I tidied up her grave, propping up vases that had fallen over, weeding out the dead flowers adding fresh ones. Once I got home I realized I had a little flat object in my back pocket and there it was again, the same keyring along for the ride. Coincidence or not Grace would have found it funny and thinking about her made me smile.

The day she died all I could write was this:

It comes in waves
leaving me breathless
I can't believe you've gone.


It still catches me like that sometimes, like when I drive past the cinema and see the last film we saw together - Midnight in Paris - is still playing.
Then I remember us saying - We'll Always Have Paris , and laughing.

I think it will always be hard like that, but in-between when I think of Grace, I think of things I want to share. I think of all the stories we have and all the good times and mostly I think of her laugh and wish I could still hear it.

My friend Cameron wrote this column in " Pleasanton Patch if you want to know what the remainder of The Literary Lushes did that day. Yes, Grace was a writer and a fin

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Part One The Awesomeness of New Zealand

So, yes it's been a while since the last post but it is the same month -- not too shabby!

First, New Zealand was amazing and finally here are some pictures!


This is a Kaka - I really really wanted to see a Kakapo but sadly it was not to be - they are very hard to find as they are so endangered kind of like Kiwis, but we got lucky.



And here is a bad picture I took of a Kiwi being weighed to see if it was big enough to go with the other bigger kiwis, I apparently had a brain seizure and couldn't remember how to use my camera anymore.












This is my 'stereotypical' shot of NZ, sheep and iced mountains.






But my favourite photos are of the sea, like this one of Whale Bay...surfers paradise.




But best of all we got to see our lovely friends and their growing family and hang out and catch up and relax together. And as mentioned in the previous post get house and garden envy and be inspired towards a more creative life and dig up your tiny patch of a yard and plant veggies and flows and an apple tree in their honor.

I will add NZ photos gradually maybe in theme slots of 3, over the next few weeks.


PART 2 the awesomeness of Mike Jung aka Captain Stupendous

So Mike Jung spoke for me at SCBWI Beyond the Bay on Saturday in Walnut Creek and it was brilliant, great crowd great energy and loads of fun and to find out more go to his blog -- he even includes lots of really useful as in fabulous links to videos and other intriguing places.