Developing Plot

Today post it notes help me develop my plot and identify the holes in my story.

See more about my process here.

Interviewing Characters that Count

After being inspired by the Cate Whittle workshop that I attended on the weekend I interviewed my new character, Lillian May Stewart, who is in year 5. (Note: Lilly's name might be changed as there are currently a few younger reader books whose main characters are named Lily.)

Now that I have interviewed Lillian May Stewart I have a much better understanding about her personality, likes, dislikes and how she reacts to situations. Lilly is beginning to become a believable character, not just some light weight, flimsy little girl.

To see more about this workshop go here.

I'm a reviewer again!

I'm so pleased that I have been able to begin to review children's books again for Kids' Book Review.

Thank you to the Kids' Book Review Team for welcoming me back to the fold after so many years away while I was President and Vice President for CBCA ACT Branch.

So far I have reviewed three books for KBR which can be viewed on their Website or Facebook page or using this link.

Aleesah Darlison's Canberra workshops

I recently attend two sessions with Aleesah Darlison, author Guest Speaker and Owner of Greenleaf Press.

Aleesah has written more than 35 books including picture books and chapter books for children. In 2016 she founded Greenleaf Press to provide assistance to Authors, Illustrators and Small Business Owners.

The first session was at Libraries ACT, Dickson branch on Social Media.
Alessah spoke about Social Media at an introductory level, specifically; Facebook, Twitter and Instagram.

Aleesah showing how her header & photo are the same on all of her Social Media platforms.

I learnt more. 
Got some great tips. 
Plus I had a chance to network with other Canberra authors. 

Cate Whittle, Krys and Brownyn

Now to apply some of this new knowledge. 

This talk helped me make some decisions and for now you will only find me here on Facebook or on my blog, Ladybird's Flight. But, I may pop up on Twitter so I can be part of the ALIA Picture Book Club.

The second session was a workshop on Creating Perfect Picture Books at the ACT Writers Centre.

A huge thanks to Aleesah for guiding us though this workshop on picture books. 

I now have a better understanding of the basics for writing a Picture Book and the way a manuscript should look - in general terms. 

This was the first time I have ever shared my writing with anyone. While this was a little scary, I felt comfortable in sharing my soul, as the people in the room proved to be supportive group.  Now it is time to actually begin editing my stories so I can begin to submit them to competitions and publishers. This course has given me more confidence to move to the next step.

The day was also a great opportunity to get to know some fellow SCBWI members better and a chance to meet new people.

Leanne with authors Genevieve Hopkins, Shaye Wardrop and Nicole Goodwin 

For more about some of our local authors please follow the links below;

Nichole Goodwin or at Tusk Books
Genevieve Hopkins
Shaye Wardrop
Cate Whittle

Canberra Women Writers Network Launch

Recipe for Collaboration

Take 30 women.

Place them in the main hall of Gorman House.

Add an interest in writing.

A large splash of enthusiasm and support.

Sprinkle with a generous dose of hope.

Stir, no bake required.

You have a Canberra Women Writers Network.

Eat straight away.

Last night was the launch of the Canberra Women Writers Network. 
The Noted Festival gave a group of inspirational female writers; Rhyll Biest, Bec Fleming, Rose Chen and Stella Frances a fabulous opportunity to launch a new network for women writers in Canberra.

These four ladies met at through the Romance Writers of Australia. They have a passion for writing, creating and supporting other women in their pursuits.
Bec explained that if you have a passion for writing and you belong, "Even if you don't consider yourself as a writer."

Stella, Rose, Bec and Rhyll

The women in the room voiced some of the following ideas for the network;

• raise the profile of women writers and artists
• getting more genres out there
• promoting diverse writers
• a need for true collaboration
• connect with someone to critic and give feedback on your work
• sharing ideas
• culture of support
• empowerment
• belonging
• sharing of skills
• giving hope

Their next meeting is the second Saturday of the month, 13 May 2017, at the Milk Crate, Shop 6. 12 Moore Street and 16 Marcus Clarke Street Canberra City.

For more information go to their Website or Facebook page.

The Fairy Tale in Australia Seminar 12 April 2017

In March an event popped up on my Facebook feed, The Fairy Tale in Australia seminar. As an emerging writer I thought that I’d take a closer look and see if this might be something that I would consider attending.

Fairy tale books from my childhood

While deciding to register for the seminar I took a closer look at the organising group, the Australian Fairy Tale Society (AFTS). I was intrigued to read that one of their goals is “Collecting original Australian fairy tales…” I wondered what they considered an Australian fairy tale as most of the people who live in Australia have come from another country (at some point in time) and bring their culture’s stories with them.  

For me my earliest memories of reading are of my mother’s fairy tale books, listening to the little golden book & records, and reading fairy tale books that were birthday gifts. So I began to think that this seminar being held on my birthday might be a ‘sign’.

This brings me forward to my discovery of adult fairy tale writing. Eight years ago when I rediscovered reading for pleasure I began to read Australian female fantasy writers. The first was Kate Forsyth’s series The Witches of Eileanan and from there I began to gobble up other writers like Juliet Marrilier and her series Sevenwaters. I loved both writers’ story telling style so when Kate released her books The Wild Girl and Bitter Greens I fell in love with adult fairy tales. Hence I was interested in finding out more about this genre.

Dorothea Wojner

On Wednesday, my birthday, an enthusiastic group of women gathered to explore Fairy Tales. Jo Henwood from the AFTS had organised a wonderful line up of speakers. 

First we heard from Dorothea Wojner, Canberra Jung Society, who gave a Jungian perspective on fairy tales. Wojner explained that fairy tales communicate ideas and images that people have culturally in common with each other. That the fairy tales we tend to like often connect with us in some way. That fairy tales contain;

• Heroic struggles
• Gaining of wisdom
• Reoccurring symbols and motifs from literature, painting and mythology
• Dark forces
• No time or specific location
• Actions rather than feelings and reactions
• Numbering patterns
• Tasks to complete
• Successes and failures
• Knots and sudden changes
• Turning points and resolutions
• One dimensional and depthless characters and environments

We looked at guidelines for how to interpret fairy tales and worked with the Grimm story The shoes that were danced to pieces. This story reminded me of a book I still own that I know as The Twelve dancing Princesses by Janet Lunn and Laszlo Gal. While was mostly the same story; numbers patterns, tasks, knots, turning points there were differences too, in my story the youngest princess marries the man not the eldest one.

Part of the enjoyment of fairy tales is experiencing someone tell the story. Jo Henwood, NSW Storytelling Guild, gave an oral example of an Australian fairy tale that she has written. Henwood gave us a dramatic telling of her story Harry and Grace (Hansel & Gretel). It was captivating.

Jo Henwood

In summary Harry and Grace were left in the woods by their father, a trapper, because there was a drought and not enough food to feed the family. Harry and Grace were shown by an aboriginal man how the environment can provide for all of their needs. Until Harry’s anger caused him to throw a burning stick in the wood causing a bushfire. In the end they were found by their father and they once again lived with their parents.

Henwood is a fabulous storyteller in voice, movement and word. She spun words with expertise and created in depth imagery of leaves flying in the air and the raging fire that threatened the children’s lives. She also illustrated how a fairy tale can be adapted to be more relevant to Australians.

Leife Shallcross

This story and theme led nicely into the next presenter’s workshop on ‘How to write an Australian fairy tale’ by Leife Shallcross, Canberra Speculative Fiction Guild. Shallcross began her presentation by explaining that for her fairy tales of our childhood are like colouring in sheets. These colouring in sheets are an outline that a writer can give details to when they colour in the picture. It is the writer’s choice how they take a fairy tale and add details to the motifs and narrative structure to create a new multidimensional story.

In this workshop we looked at three steps (an important number for fairy tales) in writing an Australian fairy tale.

1. Use a childhood memory of Australian culture
2. Overlay this with the ‘fantastic’ and motifs that are found in fairy tales
3. Then look at how this fits in with a narrative structure
• Number repetition
• Problem
• Use the fairy tale structure
• Introduce new theme
• Rework a fairy tale from your culture

When we applied these steps to ourselves the themes and motifs we chose were;

• portals
• food/bounty
• walled gardens
• drops of blood
• hidden treasures
• nature spirits
• taming beasts
• childhood quests
• magic pots and
• cautionary tales

Dr. Gillian Polack

So here we all were thinking about our favourite fairy tales and how to turn them into Australian fairy tales until we heard from Dr.Gillian Polack, Medievalist, writer and academic. Dr. Polack spoke about the history of fairy tales and how we need to be mindful and careful about which fairy tales we rework as some are fictional and some are based on historical events. It is when we rework historical based fairy tales that we might create cultural insensitive or even dangerous stories. Therefore, when choosing to rework a fairy tale research is required. It is important to make sure that you ask questions before you write the story. It all comes down to your own sense of responsibility and ethics.

With Dr Polack we delved very briefly into how fairy tales get to where they are now. That fairy tales are not always as old as we think they are and their collection is quite recent in history. The collections from medieval times were known as sermon literature that included fairy tales and biblical stories. Dr Polack highlighted that when fairy tales were collected the authors were often selective in what was included and they often changed stories to be more relevant for their culture and audience e.g. Grimm brothers 1812, Marie-CatherineBaronne d'Aulnoy 1892 or Vladimir Yakovlevich Propp 1928. A more detailed overview of Dr. Polack’s talk will be available from 2 May 2017 on The History Girls blog.

Erin-Claire Barrow

For a different view of fairy tales we were delighted by Erin-Claire Barrow, writer and illustrator of feminist fairy tales, on ‘how to illustrate an Australian fairy tale. She initially spoke about her background in drawing and passed around the room a number of her illustrations for us to view. Barrow said that she liked/s to draw everywhere; school, the bus, during lectures and meetings. I could personally attest to this as I sat next to her for the day and she created amazing sketches all day long. Barrow said that as a girl she loved to view fairy tale illustrations from the golden age; Kay Nielsen, Arthur Rackham and John Bauer.  Newer artists that inspire Barrow include Natee Puttapipat, Rovina Cai and Kelly McMoris.

Barrow had the seminar attendees’ workshop what Australian fairy tale illustrations might include in the landscape, for symbols, what people and which values/identity. Barrow then walked us though the steps that she uses when creating fairy tales illustrations;

1. Choose a fairy tale
2. Choose a scene – about 5 scene though out the story
3. Research the clothing and time period that the story is set in
4. Sketch characters with notes
5. Draw thumbnails 5x7cm of each scene until you have one you want to work on
6. Draw the line art
7. Add the washes
8. Add detail for background then foreground and lastly the character. For detailed characters; add detail of the background first then the clothes, hair and lastly the facial details.

We all had an attempt of producing thumbnails for a fairy story we like.

Erin-Claire Barrow's sketch book, drawings done during seminar.

The final session of the day was from Jo Henwood about ‘Fairy Tales in Australia’. She gave a quick historical overview of the fairy tale tradition in Australian post 1820’s;

• 1823 English translations of the Grimm Fairy Tales
• 1870’s early Australian authors (Gumsucker, Desda and Lockeyear)
• 1890’s era of nationalism (Marson, Westbury, Whitfeld and Sister Agnes)
• WWI era of Gibbs and Outhwaite
• 1940’s era of Pixie O’Harris and Peg Maltby
• 1945-1950’s works that were about the aboriginal culture but were not authorised by any aboriginal people e.g. Jindyworobaks
• 1970’s a new cultural surge and works by Alan Marshall and Patricia Wrightson
• 2000’s new fairy tales for children e.g. Cindy-Ella: An Aussie Cinderella and The Princess and the packet of frozen peas
• Now fairy tales for adults by authors; Danielle Wood, Sophie Masson, Juliet Marillier, Kate Forsyth and Murray Bail  

Finally Henwood highlighted that there is a growing number of academic PhD’s written in the pursuit of the history of fairy tales and specific fairy tales e.g. Kate Forsyth’s research on Rapunzel.

Overall it was quite an informative day to mull over.  It was also a great opportunity to meet a fabulous group of female writers and story tellers from a range of literary groups in Canberra.

Other events that may be of interest in 2017:

• Canberra Fairy Tale Ring  meets in The Antiquarian Room at the Beyond Q Bookshop, Curtin between 2-5pm. Non members $5. 2017 Meeting Dates 30 April, 30 July, 24 Septmber and 26 November
• Canebrra Story Teller Guild Story Circles every month see link for dates
• AFTS 4^th Annual Conference 20 June 2017, Caulfield Victoria
• Conflux...Grimm Tales, 29 September to 2 October 2017, Canberra ACT

Book Launch

Today Devon Sillett launched her first book The Leaky Story, illustrated by Anil Tortop and published by EK Books.

Many children and adults gathered at  Harry Hartog Bookseller, Woden this morning to meet Canberra's newest children's author and her book. Local author, Tania McCartney introduced Devon and her first book. Tania, founder of Kids Book Review, had seen the book's manuscript many years ago and thought that it ought to be published and now here it is!  

Devon is a mother of two, book reviewer and is researching her PhD, Australian children’s picture books and gender, at the University of Canberra .

Devon's joy and energy were like a burst of sunshine in the room. And as she spoke her book The Leaky Story came to life. A story began to leak out of the pages of a book, into the Blossburns' family home. There are pirates, sword fights, a karken and a wild imagination that might led to other adventures in the future.   

As always a great book launch is followed by theme appropriate food and book signing by our newest author. Well done Devon. 

For more information about Devon see her website or Facbook page.

Memory Lane - Family Farm

Today my writing session took me down memory lane of working on the family farm with Dad.

I loved doing farm work with Dad, I think that this is one of the best times in my life as an 12-15 year old doing fencing and sheep work together.

To me Col-lee was a great farm but oh so harsh on the Monaro Plains in serrated tussock country. But it was great because of the memories of our family time.

I liked that it was large enough that it took a while to get to the other side of the place and it had hills some small and some steep. It had trees, fossils, quartz and the occasional poppy. It gave me a love of the landscape.

It was peaceful as long as my brother wasn't on his motorbike.

See below for a photo, not everything was our place, mostly the land in the foreground, dams, house and shed. This was my husband's first view from our hill looking out over the property.

Polish Cooking.

Today when sat at the computer to do my first daily writing session I found myself writing about making Polish Doughnuts with my Grandmother.

I remember making these with Nana at her Yarralumula house (pre 1983) and later at her Kambah home (post 1984-1994).

I was trying to remember if she used one or two dough circles then sealing the jam inside. I sent a text to Aunty Annette Schweikert hopefully she can remember.

So I have spent a bit of time looking on YouTube. Oh the Polish recipes that I found; chrusciki/bow ties, piroshki (pierogi), cabbage rolls, gulasz, dumplings (potato ones?)

My favourite Polish cook so far is Ania's Kitchen

Our stories - Who are we?

Thanks Susanne Gervay for a fabulous afternoon talking about writing our family refugee/immigrant story and helping us finding an authentic voice. 

Wow I am a beginner without a clear direction.

While I might not have a clear idea for a story yet I now know where I will begin, a collection of stories about my family and around Canberra. Maybe one day I can write a memoir?

I also like the idea of writing articles for magazines, blogs or other print media.

Blog Content: What will I include in my blog?

Today I read Your Author Blog: What Should an Author Blog About? Not only did I find it interesting but it has come at the right time for me. I am early on in my blogging process and hopefully these tips will help me add content to my  blog that might interest others. 

While I'm not an author of books, maybe one day, I still found the words of wisdom helpful. My blog was resumed, really not properly begun in my previous blogging attempt, as part of the process of me exploring my creativity. The blogging is part of me documenting my inspirations and journey.  

What to blog about? 
(The topics outlined here are taken from the article above that inspired a rush of ideas for me to explore.)

Travel and Photos: Canberra

I have a great affinity with Canberra and the region and would like like to document places that hold a special meaning to me. I am two generations Canberrian. So when I travel around Canberra there are many locations that bring back memories and I find me telling stories associated with these places. Some of these places are associated with our family history and I recall stories told to me by my parents and grandparents. Though place we share family stories. 

Travel and Photos: Other Locations

This blog will also record other places that inspire me in some way, from its beauty to a story behind the location e.g. I love to look at art so every time I visit Melbourne we go to the National Gallery of Victoria and in an earlier blog I have shared some paintings and ephemera that inspired my interest or creativity.

How to's and recipes

In this area I have already blogged and photographed some of my cooking experiences and recipes. I find cooking at times a very relaxing and soul fulfilling experience. I see cooking as; an extension of my creativity, a connection to family and at other times it is the exploring of ingredients that is of import to me, as sometimes I have to eliminate foods from my diet for health reasons. So far my blog has explored the idea of cooking every cup cake in a specific cook book and Dairy Free or Gluten Free recipes. Now I'd liked to add FODMAPs into the repertoire.

Spotlight Your Genre

I love to read books in the genre of historical fiction and fantasy. 

Some of my favourite authors have included;

• Kate Forsythe
• Juliet Marillier
• Tamora Pierce
• Diana Gabaldon
• Posie Graeme-Evans
• Fiona McIntosh 

So in this blog there will be articles related to Historical Fiction e.g. clothing, art, music and places of the selected time period.

Informative Pieces 

At times the blog will explore things that inspire artistic thoughts. I used to be a volunteer guide at the National Gallery of Australia and we would often talk about influences on an artist. Sometimes this can be other artists, art styles or locations. Therefore I plan to document exhibitions, films/documentaries and places that I go to or that inspire me.

List and Reviews

Occasionally I will blog about things related to reading and children's literature and literacy. Over last five and a half years I wrote the eNews and developed partnerships for the ACT Branch of the Children's Book Council of Australia. During this position I have collected and developed a directory of useful resources relating to children's literature. Hence there will be blogs about events, book reviews and lists of helpful websites, blogs and Facebook pages.

Interviews and Profiles

Research is often involved in the process of exploring creativity. However this research can be rarely included in the creative product. Consequently a way to communicate this information is to share what has been discovered. Some of these may include other blogs especially when it excites the mind and intermittently interviewing people or themes further explore a topic. 

About your pets Here the article I read suggested blogging about your pets... not sure that I will do this unless it relates to my creative works.

What not to blog?

• You will find no more apologies if I become slow at blogging
• There were many more not to blogs on the article's list but I don't have anymore to add to this part of the conversation so read the article.