Words. Heart. Imagination.
Two hot-of-the-press workshops built around each of my two new picture book titles - Hedgehog the Wonder Dog and HEAVY are now open for bookings for schools or other organisations looking for creative incursions or Author Visits in Terms 2 and 3, 2023.
A creative workshop celebrating story, imaginative play and thinking...outside the box!
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.
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.
Creativity is a combination of discipline and a childlike spirit.
"Don't be nervous. Work calmly, joyously, recklessly on whatever is in hand."
We recognize instantly when a child needs lifting up, often without the need for words at all. We stop what we're doing. We respond. We lift them up - physically and metaphorically - and suddenly everything feels better.
So why do we stop?
Dannika Patterson 