Twenty-four hours in the life of a children’s author

Yesterday I had a whole day to myself to write and do writing-connected things – the only interruption being the noise from the builders outside who are demolishing our old deck and replacing it with a new one – which I plan to write from one of these days.

My Dad was a builder so the sound of saws, drills and hammers was strangely reassuring and I worked on regardless.  After my morning walk where I added, subtracted and moved words around in a new picture book text, I then spent a wonderful few hours aiming to improve the text and was satisfied with draft number 5. It still has a long way to go but I’m hoping the ‘bones’ are there.

I then received some emails about school bookings as well as a library request for sharing Hey Baby! in the week leading up to Mothers Day with young mothers and their babies – that’s the same week I have two Probus bookings, so I’ll be covering an age range from 0 to 90.

Another email dropped in from a man whose mother had ridden on Queenie and her book holds a special place in their bookcase. This man had a question about the names of the elephants who followed Queenie (Betty and Peggy) as well as some information requests about the carousel at the zoo – as well as the one at Luna Park.

I chased up some old contacts from Gundagai with a plan to re-launch the paperback of The Dog on the Tuckerbox, possibly next month and I checked the latest ‘almost final’ illustrations for my next picture book coming out in September.

The rest of the working day was spent organising a couple of SCBWI events, chasing up speakers, venues and trying to balance the books.

Tonight a friend emailed to tell me that there’s a nice review of Hey Baby! in Reading Time, so now I need to go and find a copy.  It’s gotta be the best job in the world . . . most days!