AN ANNOUNCEMENT ABOUT MY MOTHER
I’ve tried to avoid doing this, hoping that by ignoring my mother’s attempts to intimidate and harass, she would stop. But it’s reached the point where I feel I must warn people about her. I also want to stand up for myself: Nothing I’ve...
The Story Behind the Story: My Great-Grandmother
In the lead-up to publication of my novel, I want to write a few posts about the inspiration for my story. Last year, I wrote about my grandfather in ‘The Story Behind the Story’. In that post, I talked about how as soon I started writing my novel, my...
A Letter to My 12-year-old Self and Having the Freedom to Imagine
This is a quick post to let everyone know where I’ve been writing this week: Jenn J McLeod invited me to be part of her series, ‘A Letter to My Younger Self’, so I wrote to my twelve-year-old self and, as it turned out,...
What I Want to Write About …
Lately, each time I’ve sat at my computer the words haven’t come and I’ve ended up faffing. Yet my mind is overflowing with ideas and things I want to write about. So, in the end, I pulled out my notebook and pen and...
On Not Giving Up
This post could also be called On Failure, or On Working Hard, or On Learning Life’s Lessons the Hard Way. When I was young, I spent most of each summer in our above-ground pool, swimming and jumping and tumbling and doing laps of its 20-foot length. I...
Negotiating Puberty—Parenting Reflection #3
When I was growing up, I found puberty difficult. I wasn’t keen on the physical changes—I quite liked having a flat chest, hair that didn’t get oily, and armpits that were hairless and didn’t sweat. As a child, I hadn’t felt particularly...
Words I Needed to Write
I’ve spent much of this week reading Cardinal Pell’s testimony at the Royal Commission. I wasn’t going to write about it, but it’s taken over my thoughts, and I want to show support for the survivors, who’ve shown courage and resilience...
Talking to Teenagers: How I Turned My Relationship With My Daughter Around: Parenting Reflection #2
In a blog post last year, I said I’d write a post about my second daughter and how, through her, I learnt to be a better mother. That was easier said than done, believe me. Once kids reach a certain age, it’s difficult to write about them...
On Not Shaming Kids: Parenting Reflection #1
This isn’t the post I intended for this week, but the original one has turned into an unwieldy epic and I’m still working on it. Our second daughter finished school last year and will turn eighteen next month. This means both of...
The Story Behind the Story
ON WRITING ‘THE SISTERS’ SONG’ My novel, ‘The Sisters’ Song’, has evolved and that’s the only way to describe how it came into being. It’s nothing at all like what I set out to write, and this draft, Final Draft 3.0, is very different to...