CKT's Blog

When people discover that I write books and have been published they love to ask questions. Funnily enough they are often the same questions. I guess it's natural to be curious and I can honestly say I try to answer them as best I can. Sometimes though I feel like guarding my writing and the process. Then I remember that I have learnt so much from ...

In prefacing this blog, I won't pretend that I've been to many Publisher talks yet. I'm aspiring to be traditionally published and I'm new to it all. My questions are naïve and I'm a sponge, soaking in all the advice I can get but aren't we all, as emerging authors? Maybe you've wondered the same things I have, so I've compiled the pearls of wisdom...

I think one of the biggest problems facing new writers is finding time to write and to revise our work. Very few have the luxury of being able to afford to be full-time writers, and everyone still has to juggle family and friendships as well as work commitments, so time is always a precious commodity, let alone finding time to write. Writing can al...

I was lucky enough to win a manuscript assessment recently. Aside from obviously being excited I was very interested to know what this would include. You see for many years I have belonged to critique groups both physically with the Eastwood Hills Fellowship of Australian Writers (FAW) and online with Creative Kids Tales. In those critique groups I...

My day started at 4:30am. A three-and-a-bit hour drive along mostly boring highway, and a dash through more Sydney tunnels than I knew existed, and I parked in leafy Crows Nest and made my way to Allen and Unwin. I'd made it. I was at the Getting Published as a Writer for Children course at the Faber Writing Academy . It was a pleasure and an honou...

There is a quote I love from a movie called 'The Magic of Belle Isle.' Morgan Freeman stars as an invalid who was once a writer, but now sees no point in life. A young girl moves in next door, and when she finds out that he is a writer, she begs him to teach her how to write. He repeatedly turns her down, but she eventually wins him over. This is w...

Writers know The End is when you really begin. You write, write, write. Finally, you arrive at the magic words. The End. Heralded by 33,110 rough-cut words, I've recently typed The End to my latest story for 'middle grade' children. As a writer, you have probably at some time arrived at The End. And asked yourself: where do I go to from here? For m...

I am proud to say I am an alumni of the Faber Writing Academy. Although the children's writing community is wonderfully supportive, it can be soul-crushingly isolating. When you hit one of your writing goals, your writing family is there to celebrate your achievement. But the road to those achievements can be few and far between for the most part o...

Competitions. You've got to be in them to win them, right? Well, yes. But when it comes to writing competitions, there's more to them than just winning. While winning is a great boost to self-esteem (and occasionally the express train to a publisher's desk), there's this precious commodity that is like cake to unpublished authors and if you are wil...

Have you noticed some words make you cringe inside? Over my lifetime, I physically recoil when I hear or read specific words. Below is a list of my ultimate antipathies. Potential This word tops the list of my all-time cringe-worthy words. From the moment my husband and I first started looking at houses, we heard this word bandied about. The hidden...

Another Word or two from Eileen Magee— still practicing to be a 'Famous' Author—in between cups of tea. What's up? I happened to have a conversation the other day about pickles, jam and relish.A little later, I was thinking about deadlines.Somehow, the two melded together and my mind was off on a tangent… Here's where the tangent took me… Deadlines...

Have you ever been to a writer's conference? Recently, I went to my first one. As an aspiring author and one who is unpublished (although I am going to get published in the Creative Kids Tales Anthology soon!), I have sometimes felt silly saying, "I'm a writer of children's books". I think that's one of the reasons it has taken me so long to get up...

I've heard this talked about a lot lately and never really paid it much thought, as it goes hand in hand when I am writing. It wasn't until I attended a recent course at my local writers' centre and the presenter talked about the importance of playing music when he writes. The surprised reaction from his attentive audience got me thinking; how many...

I attended my first creative writing course many years ago, as part of the Continuing Education programme offered by Sydney University. It was held once a week, in a rickety building that was just a few doors away from my old student digs in Forest Lodge. Kate Llewellyn was the tutor and I remember being astounded that some in the class, when offer...

Another Word or two from Eileen Magee— still practicing to be a ' famous' Author—in between cups of tea! Are you stuck with your writing? Is it just not happening? Drifting on a little sojourn, somewhere far, far away from writing? Feeling guilty? Don't panic.It's your journey and if you get waylaid along the way or take a different turn, consider ...

In my last blog post, I talked about my experiences with K-2 school visits. In this post, I share what I have learned from visiting grades 3 - 6. I guess it's more the older kids that scare me the most, although that fear is slowly being replaced with confidence that comes with each school visit. The older kid's sessions are where you can really le...

Beaming little faces, big hugs, lots of laughter, high fives and the occasional tears. That sums up my experience with school visits. No joke, there have been tears shed and not by me. I've tipped toed around school visits over the years doing a few here and there, but as my book list grows so does the need for me to get out there. It's what I have...

It was a beautiful autumn morning. The sun was beaming through the taxi window as I made my way to meet an author whom I had admired for many years. I attempted to steady my nerves, but there had been a little niggle gnawing away at me the minute I hopped into the taxi. It wasn't until mid-conversation with the taxi driver that I realised; bugger! ...

I recently attended a workshop called 'The Art of Imperfection' at The School of Life in Melbourne. The aim of this session was to help perfectionists find ways of seeing that imperfection is often okay! As an editor, I have to be a perfectionist. As a non-fiction writer, I must ensure that all the facts are correct. However, as a creative fiction ...

When the opportunity arose to chat with New York Times best-selling and multi-award winning Kate DiCamillo, I couldn't refuse. Kate has sold over 22 million books. She is a former US National Ambassador for Young People's Literature. Her books Flora & Ulysses and The Tale of Despereaux, have both received a Newbery Medal and her title, Because ...