I love Jacob’s focus and pleasure in the music. I love his mother’s respect for musicians and their instruments as well as for children and their curiosity. I love that his father preserved and shared this beautiful thing. And perhaps best of all I love the cheerful ‘you go right ahead’ nod from Tyler.

After seeing the video I looked around a bit more to see if I could download some of the music, bought the album (which is brilliant and beautiful) and shot out a little email thanking the artist for his work. And before the album had even fully loaded he had written back to me, the nicest note! Hooray!

It was quite a special midnight.

And now I see this morning that lots of other people did the same and I am so glad. I hope Tyler Gregory gets his touring RV that runs off waste vegetable oil. And I hope Jacob continues to love and connect with music like this absolutely all his life.

(Image borrowed from Tyler Gregory’s website)

One of my favourite parts of the trip was riding up a mountain to a temple where you could dip a little silver bowl into this huge silver bowl of water and flowers and pour it over part of the shrine. It felt like a beautiful, peaceful service to offer in the searing heat.

We did things like that in the mornings because in the late afternoons there was beautiful, heavy monsoon rain that we could watch from our balcony while A. worked and I did some writing and reread Siddhartha. Here are just a few seconds I recorded. (I wish I could get the video to fit into my blog format but I can’t! Any tips anyone?)

The first time the rain came I was worried about some beautiful paper garlands I had seen and wanted to photograph. I felt sure they would have dissolved completely! But actually, they were even more beautiful the next morning, with all the colours running together.

If you would like to know what A. was doing while I was busily enjoying the above sorts of things, it was mainly this…

…but if you listen to his recordings, I’m afraid I feature in them rather prominently:

ting, ting, ting (of delicate little monastery bells)…A.! THERE ARE SOME MONKS OVER THERE AND THE SIGN SAYS YOU’RE ALLOWED TO ASK THEM QUESTIONS ABOUT ANYTHING AT ALL AND I THINK I WILL ASK THEM ABOUT…oh, sorry, you’re recording.

dooooooooooshhhh (of ancient gong)…LOOK! A.! THOSE WOMEN ARE SELLING REALLY, REALLY SMALL BANANAS!! AND THEY’RE COOKING THEM IN A REALLY, REALLY BIG…oh, sorry, you’re recording.

sweeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee (of tibetan singing bowl)…[whisper] A.,I know you’re recording, but do you think I’d be able to get one of those baskets through customs or does wicker count as plant material? Maybe if I…oh, sorry, you can still hear me.

But I think quite a few of us were extra, extra chuffed to discover that Meg McKinlay and Leila Rudge’s gorgeous No Bears has sped ahead to the short lists not once, but twice (Early Childhood AND Picture Book categories)! And deservedly so. It is a gorgeous, gorgeous book and my fingers are very firmly crossed for them.

In the meantime, I have been Violet spotting. Violet Mackerel’s Personal Space is arriving at lots of bookshops now and I have spotted her at Dymocks…

and at Hill of Content…

plus I’m told there have been sightings in Canberra, Queensland and Sydney!

Have you seen Violet with her beautiful pink and yellow wings on anywhere recently?

A while ago I offered to help out at the school fete of a couple of dear friends of mine and early in the day while wallowing I was thinking….rats. I would much rather stay in bed and be gloomy. Plus its probably going to rain. But a promise is a promise, so I pulled myself together and set out to meet my friends, carrying a basket full of approximately a zillion hair pins and ties and rolls of curling ribbon.

I felt a bit better as soon as I saw them in the beautiful fairy gazebo they had set up with buckets full of flowers. But it wasn’t until we got busy that I really started cheering up.

In fact, if there’s anything more cheering than the faces of small people when you hand them a mirror and they see how beautiful they look with a mass of flowers and ribbons pinned in their hair, I would very much like to try that thing, because I just cannot imagine it.

As the day wore on there seemed to be hundreds of people running and bouncing around with fairy hair. It really was a bit like some kind of enchantment!

A few boys let us pin flowers in their hair and a good handful of grown-ups too. They all looked just beautiful. And it didn’t rain!

If I am being honest, there are lots of reasons for me to be very cheerful today, including loads of good news on the book-front which I will write about soon.

But for now, what I have learned is this: If you are feeling gloomy because some people you love have moved away, the best thing you can possibly do is pin flowers and curly ribbons in about 120 people’s hair.

It really does the trick.

When I look at the ideas that have become proper, full creations, there is a key point I think they have in common:

They weren’t shared too early

It is so tempting, when you have a head full of the possibility of something new and exciting, to talk to people about it and there are definitely pros to this approach. Friends can be supportive and excited, which is always lovely. People can help you to build on and develop your ideas, which can make them stronger and more viable. But I think there can be crucial cons too.

Firstly, a small bit of negative feedback (or even a perceived lack of positive feedback) can be a bit like soap in the bubbles of a new idea. Pointing out problems is useful at the nuts-and-bolts construction stage of a project, but if you’re still at the beginning, still at the should-I-or-shouldn’t-I-even-try stage, even a hint of negativity can stop a new idea dead in its tracks. There is plenty of time later to fine-tune and iron out problems. At this early stage, I think its best to keep turning over and over the very best parts of the idea and give it all the positive energy you can.

Secondly, until you have a very clear sense of what you want to do, people’s suggestions as to how you could execute your idea, even (especially?) if they’re very helpful, can muddle up the clarity of your vision. Say you have a mental of yourself selling flowers wrapped in brown paper and are delightedly mulling over the possibility of starting up a small florist in a nearby vacant shop front. One friend suggests that you could cut your expenses by running the business online. Another suggests you could combine it with her idea of a gift shop in the city. Another suggests a mobile flower delivery service will be more competitive. And they are all wonderful, practical, inspired ideas, but the idea that was exciting to you was distinctly local and involved brown paper specifically. And now those crucial details are getting lost and the heart of the idea is at risk of drifting away with them.

Thirdly, once you’ve talked about an idea, you have set something very small in stone. Even if it’s just the possibility of being asked later on, ‘So how is the florist plan going?’ or a vague sense of an obligation to follow through, for fear of being one-of-those-people-who-talks-about-things-but-never-does-them.  That might be positive if what you’re looking for is some kind of accountability from people around you. But a new idea might be too early in its gestation to have any part of its form set in stone. If you keep turning it over and over, the idea might have its eventual birth as a beautiful book about wrapping flowers, or a market stall run from a caravan, or a charitable Christmas venture, wrapping gifts with brown paper and flowers. I think new ideas, when they’re still just a spark, need flexibility and room to develop and grow before any part of them becomes even slightly fixed.

So that’s my take on it all and it’s what works for me, but I’d love to hear what others think. How do you treat your own new ideas?

Also little while ago Violet and I stopped by for a five minute chat with children’s magazine Little Angel, which was good fun (though I’m not sure that either Violet or myself really qualify for a label like that…)

Meanwhile I am busily writing, writing and writing about Violet and beginning a different and (I think) quite exciting new project too.

It has always been a special delight of mine to see a book I love properly acknowledged. I cheered audibly when Sonya Hartnett won the Astrid Lingren Memorial Award for The Silver Donkey. I bought myself a second copy just for the pleasure of seeing it properly celebrated. I also have fond memories of my primary school class reviewing all the books on a shortlist one year and picking our own winners. The judges eventually concurred with my choice, which was Emily Rodda’s Pigs Might Fly. I took this as affirmation of my own impeccable taste and I’m sure behaved insufferably all week as a result.

And of course there are other books which I feel badly deserve this kind of recognition and never seem to get it. I won’t list those in case it seems like rubbing it in, but I will say that my mind’s eye can very clearly see all the appropriate stickers on the covers.

A particular shortlist that led to much undignified dancing and whooping in my home was the CBCA Children’s Book of the Year Award last year, because it included Meg, Sally and myself. (I wrote about it at the time, here and here.) It meant that our books could be part of book week, so all kinds of people became involved in bringing our stories to life. I don’t think I knew, when I first received the happy phone call, quite how amazing it would be. School children sang and watched puppets and actors recreate Meg’s book, Duck for a Day, on stage. Children created fabulous domino topples all around Australia, inspired by Sally’s book, Toppling. And I was so excited to discover a video of children at Hassal Grove outlining their own brilliant plots, in manner of Violet Mackerel.

Samuel Johnson wrote, “A writer only begins a book. A reader finishes it.” I like this idea very much and I watched with astonishment as the books we began were finished over and over in beautiful, exciting, creative ways, all week long.

However, because I am the sort of person who slightly dreads any kind of formal, proper, you-really-ought-to-try-and-do-something-with-your-hair-Anna-or-at-least-brush-it occasions, I also get a bit nervous about awards and ceremonies when they involve me personally. So I love the photos on Stephen Michael King’s website of him receiving one of many awards for his beautiful books. I think they are absolutely perfect.

And I do not think he brushed his hair.

[The original images appear here with some lovely text too, not to mention a long list of very thoroughly earned awards.]

Anyway, this has culminated in some plain jane dolls I have been making. They are very small, only about seven inches, and all from recycled bits and pieces, even the hair and stuffing.

I am thinking of leaving them faceless. Some people find it spooky but I like their personalities being a bit unfinished.

What do you think?

Unlike the hair I used to give my dolls, which was very laborious (each hair stitched in separately!) this hair is just one long piece of wool stitched with a big needle.

I think doing the hair might be my favourite part, actually.

The other difference between these and my old dolls is that I’ve been sewing their arms on over their clothes, separate from the rest of their bodies. It’s a lovely easy way to have outfits with bare arms…

And after all it is summer here.

[I have linked this post at the Magic Onions Friday's Nature Table]

So once you’ve knitted your heart and stuffed it, wrap it with tufts of wool roving and needlefelt a new surface for it, being careful to protect its shape.

I strung my hearts with wooden buttons because that is fun.

And here they are…

x

[I have linked this post at CraftoManiac, Summit Street Joy, Sew Can Do and I heart nap time.]

I feel I should preface my own account of the editing process with a more general observation. I have often been warned that whatever-it-is-I-am-about-to-embark-on will certainly be the most grim and soul-destroying experience of my life. It happened when I began my degree, when I began my PhD, when started teaching, when I started lecturing and it happened again when I first started writing for children. And without wanting to discount the experiences of the people who offered me these warnings, I never seem to end up sharing in them.

I suspect this is only partly a matter of temperament and is mostly a matter of luck. (Certainly in the case of editing I have seem to have been blessed with particularly skilled and lovely people to work with – so far mainly Sue Whiting at Walker Books Australia and Penny Matthews at Puffin Books Australia.) But anyway, my point is only that if you really disliked your studies, your work and your experience of transforming a chosen pastime into a job-of-sorts, there is a chance you might also really dislike being edited.

So, editing seems to happen in phases. Of course, you do quite a lot that could be called editing before your work ever gets to an editor-proper. You read it over and over and fix up what you can, but still miss a large number of typos and plot inconsistencies and slight implausibilities. Then you give the work to your mum, your sister or a friend with a literary bent and they spot a few more, which you consider and fix. And then you do a big swallow and hit send.

In my experience, the first formal edit starts with bigger issues, like a chapter ending weakly, or a plot line not sufficiently (or else perhaps too easily) resolved. Then when those problems are worked out, there is another edit for slightly smaller ones, like forgetting that Mum is in the garden and so can’t really turn round and make a cup of tea and noticing that Violet seems to have stopped wanting something she wanted very badly only a paragraph or two ago – that sort of thing. And then there are quite a few rounds of edits that go back-and-forth with quite small problems, e.g. ‘Anna, we know you quite like the word ‘quite’ and we quite like it too, but we did wonder if you would consider using ‘quite’ only three times in every sentence rather than, sometimes, twelve. Usually I am happy to cut one or two ‘quite’s.

So that’s the nuts-and-bolts of it and you’d be mad to imagine that there is not rather a lot of work involved in writing a book that happens well after the story has been sent off. But how does it feel? In my experience, good. It feels as though there are skilled, experienced people on your side, who love and are invested in your work and can’t bear the thought of it being released into the world until it is as strong as it can possibly be. They are as passionate as you are, but with better perspective. I’m sure it happens, but so far I have never been told I have to change anything. It’s more a matter of having a problem (that I was often half-aware of already) clearly articulated, making it much easier to solve.

In sum, I would have to say that rather than being something to dread, being edited is actually one of the big perks of having your stories published. Editors form a kind of safety net to make sure neither you nor your beloved characters will fall too far and for me, that sense of safety frees up a lot of creative energy.