Well, I have left this blog unattended for far too long. Time to get back to work.
Kidlit.com are holding a competition with critiques as prizes.
Email the first 500 words of your completed Middle grade or YA novel.
There is no fee but there are conditions of entry. Follow the link below for more info.

The South Coast Branch of the Children's Book Council of Australia is looking for expressions of interest for a course that they plan to hold in 2009.

The course will be run by Margaret Hamilton and Dee Huxley and be held at Wollongong library at a date yet to be determined.

It will focus on Creating Picture Books and be a 6 hour course, held over one day from 10am-4pm. The cost is $120 and there are only 16 places available, 7 of which are already taken.

Contact Di Bates at dibates@pacific.net.au if you are interested.

I had one of those rare days this week where I felt like maybe I am on my way to truly
becoming a writer. I had sent off an interview the night before and couldn't stop checking
my emails throughout the morning to see if it had been accepted. When the yes finally
came through I was elated.

Not long after, I received another email. This time a rejection for a picture book manuscript.
Not the follow up I would have hoped for. The silver lining was that it came with feedback
from the editor, something I had only dreamed about when I first began receiving those
Dear Sir or Madam rejection slips. Maybe I really was getting closer to the big YES.

That afternoon, I retrieved my mail and inside a letter with an American stamp
was a US$100 note, payment for some articles that I sold about four months ago. What
a rush! My biggest payment yet and with the dollar currently so low, a nice little bonus too.

It was all a bit surreal. Every day you wait impatiently for word on all the babies you have
sent out, usually receiving nothing but frustration and here were three answers in one day.

If only every day could be like that.

Now I just have to go and rewrite that picture book manuscript.

I had an exciting moment this week.

You know what it feels like when you get an unidentifiable letter in the mail?
That little buzz that begins in your chest and spreads through your body
as you begin to imagine that maybe this is the one you've been waiting for,
this is the longed for acceptance. This is the feeling I got this week when
a plain white envelope appeared in my letterbox with a familiar name on the
back.

I knew it wasn't an acceptance, but there was still this feeling of anticipation.
I knew what it contained. My first ever writing-related check. My first official payment.
Just a small amount, for a short, non-fiction piece, but still ... payment!

I'm still flying. A few days later I found out that 6 pieces submitted for a teacher
resource book had all been rejected but nothing this week could bring me down.

I don't know how I'll get myself to cash it. I think I'll stare lovingly at it for a few
weeks first.

I visited the Norman Lindsay Gallery in the Blue Mountains today.
There was a festival being held to celebrate the 90th Anniversary of
The Magic Pudding. Little children were running everywhere across the
lawns, chasing the Magic Pudding and trying to protect it from those sneaky
pudding thieves.

And I wondered ... what was it about this story that it still kept children
enthralled 90 years after it had been written? What was the recipe behind
the success of The Magic Pudding?

Was it that the artist had been true to himself? Lindsay wrote the book
because he believed that children cared more about food than fairies.

Was it the cheekiness of the characters? The children today were drawn
just as much to the pudding thieves as they were to the pudding.

Or was it the pure joyfulness of the story itself? Lindsay's artwork
illustrates his free spirit and his story embraces that free spirit.

Walking through the gardens of Lindsay's estate I could see how he would
have been inspired by the bush surrounding him and it made me dream of
what it would be like to live such an unfettered and creative existence.

One day ...

I'm creating an anthology of diary entries of Australian girls
from the seventies to today.

If you have a diary and would like to contribute please email
your favourite page to aussiediaries@gmail.com.

I am only looking for one page per person and only real
diary entries. No fiction please.

Spread the word.

So I got a bit of a wake up call today.

A generous editor who shall remain nameless gave me some advice and
made me realise that if I really wanted to become a professional writer
I needed to start acting as if I already was one.

I've been so aware of my lack of experience that I didn't have the
confidence to just take on a job and do it. I was always checking to see
if I was doing it right. I should have just stamped 'amateur' across my
forehead and been done with it.

The tax man told me that until I earn over $3000 my writing is
classified as a 'hobby', and I guess that's how I've been treating it. I've
been embarrassed to call myself a writer, cringing every time someone
asked me if I'd sold a book yet.

Well no more. This will be my day job eventually and from this moment
on I'm going to toss aside my fear and behave as though it already is.

Here's the advice I got today:

• Don't send in revisions. Get it right the first time.
• Don't do anything that will give your editor more work.
• You are a professional - stand on your own feet.
  

I hope it helps you as much as it helped me.

I came across a great blog by writerjenn. She has some insightful comments
to make on the subject of Voice. Here's the link if you want to check it out:

http://writerjenn.livejournal.com/53715.html

In other news, I completed and sent off my first interview today. That was
an interesting experience. I was so worried about being rude that I didn't
take a single note and drove home in a panic that maybe the dictaphone
hadn't worked and I would have to write the whole thing by memory. What
a relief when I got home and the interview was all there.

Strange thing though, my interviewee's voice sounded just as I remembered
it but that high-pitched, nervous interviewer didn't sound anything like me.
Did it?

Also in the news this week is another lovely rejection letter. This one coming all
the way from America. Now I'm one more rejection closer to that acceptance.
Yay me!!

We had writing teacher, Kathryn Andersen as a guest speaker at the August meeting of my local Fellowship of Australian Writers (FAW) group. She was an excellent presenter and gave the clearest explanation of premise that I have yet heard. This is what I learnt.

Last month I decided to try and become a contributing writer for
Suite101.com. I almost jumped through the floor when I was accepted.

Now I have a permanent presence on the Net and if I Google myself,
actual writing credits come up.

Here's my Profile with a list of articles published if you want to check it out;

http://www.suite101.com/profile.cfm/slaylass

I'm finding out that it doesn't pay to be nervous or hesitant. If you
really want to become a writer you have to try every market you can find
and not be too precious about the type of work that you're willing to do.
 
Publishing an article isn't the same as having my name on a book cover and
I'm still a long way off being able to call myself an author. But at least now
I feel I can truthfully say that I'm a writer.

Not that I'm going to give up on that book cover. I sent my picture book
manuscript off to three more publishers today.

Fingers crossed!!