WORDS. HEART. IMAGINATION.
Publisher. Editor. Author. Illustrator. Agent. Our jobs are very different. Our primary goal is the same. Although we are all coming at our roles with a unique collection of priorities, pressures, passions, opportunities, skill sets and whatever other wildcard life is throwing at us at the time, we are all doing the very best we can for what boils down to the very same reason...to make a story we LOVE into a book that will be read.
'The first duty of a book is to be fascinating. Our society can’t afford kids who expect or accept boredom. We need young people with the vision, knowledge confidence & joy in the natural world to learn & work & innovate to save our planet. A book can help kids love the world.' Jackie French
The experience of becoming a published author has been many things so far: joyful, exhilarating, scary, exposing, uplifting, humbling, inspiring, rewarding, confronting, frustrating, mystifying, unsettling, affirming.
Rocks and sand become building tools on worksites, sticks become magic wands, fallen paperbark becomes secret scrolls or treasure maps. Siblings become friends. Nature weaves it's magic over us.
There they have waited patiently since being packed away last January. Covers calling out to be cracked open, pages poured over by curious eyes who remember the gist of the stories but delight in the details all over again every December. Old is new again. Hello my precious Christmas books.
An important part of my journey this year has been learning to stop for the small moment it takes to properly notice the beauty of fleeting things, like dew drops.
When I received my first rejection letter, generically worded as it was, I felt...honored. A bit special. Like I'd earned my first Brownie badge. Lost my first tooth. Received my first 'participation' medal on sports day. Rejection is a writer's right of passage, after all.
For the past few weeks my head has been full of rocks. Rocks in waking moments, rocks in my dreams. Not just any rocks. Really special rocks. Kindness rocks.
