Over the next couple of weeks I will be speaking about my new novel THE HYPNOTIST’S LOVE STORY at the following venues in NSW, Queensland and Victoria. If you live nearby, please come along and say hello. Mention that you read this Blog and I will discreetly hand you a FREE RED FROG. Seriously. I will. (The man at my fruit and veg shop gives free red frogs to my children and I always have to resist holding out my own hand for one. It’s hard being a grown-up.)

It’s a strange thing talking out loud about a world that has only existed in your head for two years. It makes me feel incredibly self-conscious.

Fortunately there is always a particular person in the audience who helps get me through. As soon as I start talking she (it’s normally a she) gives me the loveliest, most encouraging smile. Then she nods and chuckles the whole way through my presentation, as if she’s never heard anything more fascinating. I love that person.

I have to admit I’m not that person myself. Whenever I see someone speak, I keep my face totally blank and avoid eye contact as if I’m on a New York subway, on the off chance there is some sort of humiliating audience participation thing coming up.

Once, when I was talking about What Alice Forgot, I made the mistake of looking away from the smiley, encouraging lady in the back row, and noticed a man in the front row who had gently nodded off to sleep. It gave me the giggles. It was my punishment for all those times I fell asleep during uni lectures. My notes were filled with strange scribbles where my pen had skidded off the page after my chin suddenly dropped to my chest.

Anyway, whether you choose to smile and nod, look stony-faced, or enjoy the opportunity for a quick snooze, I’d really love to see you there.

Tuesday October 4
Where? Dymocks ROUSE HILL, Shop GR023, Rouse Hill Town Centre
10-14 Market Lane, Rouse Hill
Time: 7.00PM
Bookings: 02 8883 3055
Cost: $5

Wednesday October 5
Where? Black Cat Books, 179 La Trobe Terrace
PADDINGTON, BRISBANE QLD 4064
Time: 6.30PM
Bookings: 07 3367 8777
Cost: $5

Thursday October 6
Bookseller: Angus & Robertson – Literary Lunch
Venue: The Grandview Hotel
49 North Street
CLEVELAND POINT QUEENSLAND
Time: 12.00PM
Bookings: 07 3286 1002
Cost: $35
Extra Information: 2 course luncheon served with a glass of wine

Tuesday October 11
Where? Berkelouw Balgowah, Shop 24, 215 Condamine Street
BALGOWLAH
Time: 6.00PM
Bookings: 02 9948 1133
Cost: FREE

Wednesday October 12 – together with authors Dianne Blacklock and Ber Carroll
Where? Penrith City Library, 601 High Street PENRITH
Time:6.30PM
Bookings: 02 4732 7891
Cost: FREE

Thursday October 13
Where: Surry Hills Library 405 Crown St, Surry Hills
Time: 6:30PM
Bookings: 02 8374 6230
library@cityofsydney.nsw.gov.au
Cost: FREE

Friday October 14
Where: The Sun Bookshop, 9-10 Ballarat Street
Yarraville
Time: 6.00PM
Bookings: 9689 0661
info@sunbookshop.com
Cost: FREE

So, I didn’t blog for about six months, but all that time ideas for blog entries kept drifting across my mind, like clouds flitting across the sky, or some other punchier, less sappy metaphor; I’ve got a cold.  A summer cold, sent home from preschool, carefully passed on via dozens of sticky little fingers.  I can’t be expected to come up with metaphors when it’s hot and my nose is blocked.

(I love it when bloggers complain about their colds in great detail, especially when I’m feeling healthy.  It’s similar to the way I quite enjoy eating dinner while watching the contestants on Survivor starve.)   

Anyway, I had lots of ideas for blog entries , like butterflies flitting – no.

I just never caught those ideas on paper.  

For example, months back, during the winter, I walked by a group of teenage girls sitting in a circle on the grass.  They were talking that way teenagers talk.  “So I was like, no way!” And I thought, Actually, I quite like that ‘like’ thing. It’s much more descriptive than, “So I said, no way.”  She didn’t just say ‘no way’. She felt it.  

I was going to write a blog entry about that.  I was thinking, other people my age complain about young people’s language. Not me! I’m so unconventional and hip!  

And I was going to mention how much I love ‘whatever’. It’s the perfect withering comeback when you’re losing an argument! It gives you the last word when you don’t have the last word.  Used judiciously it can be quite devastating.  True, it makes you sound like a teenager. But whatever. It’s not like you ever sound mature when you’re arguing.  I think there was a real gap in our vocabularies and ‘whatever’ filled it. I’d like to warmly congratulate whoever first said it.   

But then, later that same day I was crammed into a shopping centre lift with a few hundred  teenagers, and I thought, if you children use that word ‘like’ one more time I’m going to scream.  So then I’m like, I can’t write that blog entry now! I’m just the same as all those other conventional, middle- aged people.

By the time I got home that blog entry had floated away, like a boat.

Yes, like a boat. Seriously. I just sneezed fourteen times in a row.

There was another day, I remember, in spring, and we were at the park near the beach with my sister Jaci and her little boy Charlie. There was a wedding going on right next to us, and all the guests had been handed bongos. Did I just make that word up?  As in little drums? No.  I googled it.  (How did I ever get through the eighties without google or the word ‘whatever’?)

So the wedding guests were obediently drumming away while the bride and groom signed the – whatever it is they sign. (Cold! Very bad cold! Enjoy your ability to breathe freely through both nostrils.)

Jaci and I started dancing to the drum beat.  I was carrying the baby and she was laughing as I bounced her on my hip, and it was a beautiful moment in the spring sunshine. But then our sons noticed. Our very small sons. They were dying of embarrassment. “Stop it!” they told us sternly. “But it’s fun!” we cried. They stamped their feet. “Stop that right now!”  

We stopped, and as soon as they got distracted pretending to drill a tree with long sticks, we started again. They caught us and went to sit on a park bench with their arms folded, shooting furious looks at us over their shoulders.  

They were only 3 and 4 years old! “It’s started already,” we said sadly.  It seemed like only yesterday they were babies and now they were miniature teenagers.  

But then, a few minutes later they were arguing. “I want it!” shouted George. We finally worked out that he wanted Charlie’s imaginary sword.  “Ah,” we said, amused. That’s easy to solve. “Here you go then!” and we pretended to hand George a sword. “NO! It’s mine!” screamed Charlie. And then they were both grabbing at the air for the imaginary sword.  

So we ignored them and danced, happy that our children weren’t so grown-up after all.

I was going to blog about that, but then, you see, I was on that slippery slope at the end of my novel, where I could see the end in sight. Every time I sat down at the computer I didn’t want to write anything else except another paragraph that would take me closer to THE END.

I wrote THE END just before Christmas. It’s called THE HYPNOTIST’S LOVE STORY and it will be released in Australia in September. 

Now, I’m waiting for the editing, and sniffing, and eating left-over lolly snakes from my daughter’s first birthday and googling ‘calories in a snake’ and remembering all those blog entries I never got around to writing.

Look, I have something to say to the truck driver who was behind me as we headed into the Lane Cove Tunnel the other day. Yes, I understand you were angry, because I should have moved into the left hand lane FASTER! MUCH FASTER! Because you were in a hurry! And I was only doing the speed limit! And you needed to go much faster than that! So I certainly did deserve to be punched continuously in the face (if I picked up on your message correctly?)

The thing is, we’d just driven by diggers! Diggers! Who knew they even existed? But now I have a son, I’ve come to realize that diggers are fine pieces of machinery. (Useful too, I guess, for digging.) Anyway, we were discussing diggers and so I didn’t move over as fast as I should have.

I’m truly sorry.

I’M NOT REALLY! I’M BEING PASSIVE AGGRESSIVE!

The only time I ever get road rage is in reaction to somebody else’s road rage. Apart from that I’m all gentle shrugs and friendly toots and oh-you-silly-person-in-the-blue-car-goodness-me-just-what-are-you-doing-you-silly-sausage?

I guess it’s because I’m possibly not the world’s best driver. When I first started driving I considered photocopying a standard letter to leave on the windscreens of all the people I bumped into when I tried to park.

Once my sister got a job working at the insurance company I used and she checked my records. She rang me up and said, “You do realize they record every word you say when you ring up to report an accident? Like, ‘The man was really mean to me’?”

Well he was. And I was only twenty. (OK, thirty.) I ran into him on the harbour bridge because I took my eyes off the road to try and find a coin for the toll. “It doesn’t seem like there’s much damage!” I said brightly as we examined the back of his car. The man frowned. He got down on his hands and knees. Then he pounced. “Look!” he cried triumphantly as he pointed out a teeny-tiny scratch I could have rubbed away with my sleeve. “You’re going to have to pay for that!”

Anyway, truck driver, I moved over. And I gave you a little wave of apology. But I still think your reaction was a touch excessive.

Unless, of course, you’d just got terrible news. And you were racing your truck to be by someone’s side. In which case, I really am sorry.

Otherwise, I hope you got a ticket.

***
In other news, I’ve finished my new book! More details to come.
Also, we saw more diggers today!

PS. Is it bad manners to post about a trivial incident without mentioning that it’s been six months since I was here? Or just sort of odd? Or perfectly acceptable?

Thank you to everyone who entered my competition for UK readers – all nine of you! I was frightened I wouldn’t get any entries at all and I’d look like someone at a party earnestly suggesting a game of charades, so I was truly thrilled to see every single one of your lovely comments.

Alice from Warwickshire was the winner of the signed copy of Three Wishes. Congratulations Alice! I assigned everyone a number and used one of those random number generators to select the winner. It generated the number 2, which surprised me for some reason. I thought, “How random is that!”

Thank you again for entering. Really. OK, now it’s like I’m tearily hugging all the kind people who agreed to play charades with me.

***
I have been writing a scene for my next book where a character is driving home from a restaurant and reflecting on two important events. Those two events were quite hard to write, and I’m not getting much time to write lately, so it felt like this trip home had been going on FOREVER. Every time I sat down at my computer I would think, Oh for heaven’s sake, she’s not STILL driving home is she? It’s a twenty minute drive! I mention this because today she finally pulled up in front of her house. I nearly wrote, ‘She heaved a sigh of relief’ before I remembered that was just me.

***
I’ve got into a bad habit of looking myself up on Amazon every morning and then allowing the reviews to decide my mood for the day. A good review gives me a warm glow that lasts about half an hour. A bad review gives me a gloomy feeling that lasts about two weeks. It should be the other way around.

Once I was at a party talking to group of people I’d never met. We got on to the topic of reviews. A woman who was an opera singer said to me, “What’s the worst review you’ve ever got?” I said, “I don’t want to tell you!” Everyone looked disappointed with me. Then the opera singer shared her worst review (something along the lines of sounding like a shrieking cat) and everybody laughed fondly at her, because she was being self-deprecating and funny. I woke up in the middle of the night after that party filled with self-loathing because I hadn’t been self-deprecating and funny like the opera singer.

It’s possible that I don’t respond to criticism very well. Many years ago when I was working in marketing, my boss gave me a performance appraisal. He made lots of complimentary remarks and then he said – tentatively – “My only negative comment is that maybe you don’t respond to criticism very well.” I was outraged. “What? When exactly? Give me an example of that!” I cried. Eventually he gave up and withdrew the comment. It didn’t seem to occur to him to say, Um, THIS is an example of you not responding well to criticism.

***
Whenever I’m typing I end up with a whole lot of left-over words at the end of the document. It’s like I’m littering words as I write. There are pages and pages of word rubbish. Here’s an example:

I falling asleep e if there’s Armageddon jack. I’m kee never got forward with a pain th took the two cups, and it all happened so smoothly and to rescue her. Jack took the drinsk. I saw Nathan walk towards her, and take one drink, while Jack carried standing there with . I saw Nathan stand up and pick up Ellen’s bag from ehr, lobent down helping herself to a plastic cup of waterf from a wa

Does that happen to everyone? Or am I just a really messy typist, just like I’m a really messy cook? I need to learn to clean up my words as I go, don’t I?

I never really understand it when people say they don’t have time to read. To me, it’s like saying: I don’t have time to breathe. Although, actually, people say that as well, don’t they?   Anyway, my point is that books are as important to me as oxygen. I read, read, read. That means I always have another author’s voice chattering away in my head, which is fine, except for when I sit down to write. Then I need that other author to be quiet, so I can remember my own voice. Otherwise, I automatically start to imitate their style.

 For example, I recently read a book by an author who has a habit of using long, lilting sentences, with numerous commas, and all of a sudden that seemed like the cool way to write, and my sentences began meandering on, like this, all over the computer screen, and part of me was thinking, wow, would you look at my long, elegant sentences, while another part of me was thinking, this isn’t you, it’s her, stop that!

 Anne Tyler is one of my favourite authors and even when I’m not reading one of her books I find myself channelling her style. My characters start to speak like they live in Baltimore, and I use italics everywhere because she does it so beautifully, whereas I just sound like a lunatic.

 I recently read the ‘Girl with the Dragon Tattoo’ series and I didn’t think Stieg Larsson’s voice was creeping into my writing at all, until my character got up one morning and dressed herself in a short-sleeved turquoise cotton shirt, a black cardigan with silver buttons and blue denim jeans and sat down to eat a poached egg with black pepper, two pieces of crispy bacon and half a slice of buttered multigrain toast.  Larsson describes every outfit and every meal in weirdly compelling detail. I can’t get away with it. Who wears a short sleeved turquoise shirt? Also, it makes me hungry. 

 It takes at least half an hour of writing before I manage to exorcise the current book I’m reading from my head. Then I need a cup of tea and perhaps half a slice of buttered multigrain toast to celebrate. Then I think I’ll just quickly check my email. Then the batteries in my mouse die and I walk around the house swearing and pulling apart appliances looking for another pair. Then the phone rings and I have a good chat about how lucky I am that the baby is sleeping while my toddler is off with the babysitter, so I have time to write.  Then I just quickly check my email again. Then I need another cup of tea. And then, I start writing, and it’s going beautifully, and I’m writing like me, and oh, I love being a writer!, this is the life!, and the words are clickity-clacking across the page, and this novel might actually be going somewhere and then…the baby cries. Right on cue. Every time.

 So if you’re wondering why it’s taking me so long to write my next novel, that’s why. It’s the baby’s fault. She keeps me so busy I barely have time to breathe.

During my gym class on Saturday morning the teacher shouted, “This class is all about ordinary people doing extraordinary things!”

Which, I don’t know, really? We all sort of blinked at her. It was an 11.30am class. We didn’t even have to get out of bed that early to be there.   And it was a sunny day.

Although there is something a little extraordinary about this particular class because it’s all about pretending to hit invisible opponents. We do a right hook to his jaw! And an upper cut! And then a back kick! There is one move where you pretend to hold someone down with one hand and smash their face to a bloody pulp with the other.   When I first started I got the giggles doing this, but now I take it completely seriously.  It’s strangely  satisfying.

I don’t even laugh when the teacher yells, “Now, put on your cage fighting face!” I just grit my teeth and narrow my eyes.   (Although I make sure I never accidentally catch sight of myself in the mirror. I suspect my cage fighting face might not be quite as impressive as it feels.)

The teacher also likes us to make grunting sounds when we kick.  Like this: HAAA!  We always start off shyly:  Ha! And then when she’s disappointed, we try harder: HAAAAA!   

Then at the end of the class, when we’ve finished grunting and kicking and bashing, and it’s time for ‘abs’, we all line up politely to get a mat from the pile in the corner. You’d think we’d be elbowing each other out of the way, slamming fists into jaws,  but no, it’s all, “You first!” and “Oh sorry, here you go!”

I do another class with weights, where you have to put a bar on the ‘meaty part of your shoulders’ (you would think there would be a more pleasant way to describe this) and then you squat up and down.  My nose always starts to itch. I try to use it as a test of character.  I think, ‘Your country depends on you not scratching your nose!’ And then I IMMEDIATELY drop the bar to scratch my nose. It’s disappointing. I appear to have no strength of character whatsoever.  Still, I do have an excellent right hook.

What Alice Forgot was released in the UK this month and to celebrate I’m running a competition.

Hooray! I feel nervous about it, which is why I’m using too many overexcited exclamation marks. I’m worried no one will enter. Please enter!

I myself rarely bother to enter competitions, although when I do, I always have a strong feeling that I’m going to win.

This feeling only proved to be correct on one occasion. It was during my ‘corporate years’ in the late eighties. I was wearing pale pink lipstick, orange hoop earrings and a jacket with enormous shoulder pads to attend an ‘Institute of Chartered Accountants’ cocktail party in Sydney. I was meant to be networking and handing out my business card but I was always too shy to network. Instead I stood in the corner drinking champagne and trying to discreetly adjust my shoulder pads. (They were stuck on with Velcro and they were always sliding off at weird angles.) The only thing I did with my business card was put it into a big glass bowl for the chance to win two airline tickets. When they were doing the draw the thought crossed my mind: ‘I’m going to win’. And I did! I remember that my hands flew to my mouth when they called out my name. They really did. I think it’s the only time in my life that my hands have flown to my mouth.

The tickets were to anywhere in Australia. Two weeks later, while I was still deciding where to go on holidays, that particular airline collapsed.

It’s remarkable the power I have over the universe. Here is another example: The first time I ever bought shares, the stock market crashed within three days. I heard about it on the radio on my way to work. As far as I knew they’d never even mentioned the stock market on the radio until that moment. The 1987 stock market crash: completely my fault. I’m sorry if you lost money because of me.

OK, so this is the way my competition will work! Any reader from the UK who leaves a comment on this Blog before 1 August will go into the draw to win a signed copy of my first novel, Three Wishes.

Your comment should be friendly, but apart from that, it doesn’t matter what you say, you will be in with a chance.

If you’re a reader from the UK and you’ve stumbled on this blog, please enter. You may be the only UK reader to comment in which case you will have an excellent chance of winning. Your hands could be flying to your mouth!

You will notice that I haven’t done a competition for Australian readers. I guess this is because you are like family and I take you for granted. I promise to do another competition for you later in the year. You could always put on a British accent in your comment and try to fool me, but then you’d also have to go to the trouble of setting up a fake address in the UK for me to send the book. Actually, if you went to that much effort you would probably deserve to win.

On Sunday I went to my sister-in-law’s baby shower.

My mother gave me directions for how to get there. She believes all her children to be hopeless navigators (it’s true, most of us are) and whenever we’re driving anywhere different she likes to meticulously plan out our routes for us, avoiding right hand turns. (She believes right hand turns to be extremely dangerous.)

If you tell Mum that you’ve got a satellite navigator, or that you plan to google the directions, or refer to your own street directory, or remind her that you’re a grown-up now, she just giggles, and gives you the directions anyway.

So Mum left a message on my phone with the directions. She finished with, “And then you’re in the street, and you’ll see the house straight away, because there will be balloons out the front.”

So I got there without any problem (apart from that right hand turn phobia, her directions are excellent). Except I was running late because the morning had somehow slipped right through my fingers. I saw the house with the balloons. I parked and yanked the baby capsule out of the car, slung the nappy bag over my shoulder, put the present under my arm and hobbled into the house.

Everyone was already eating lunch. I was starved.
“Oh, how cute!” said a teenage girl, looking down at Anna.

“Thank you,” I mumbled, because I had the stem of my sunglasses gripped between my teeth. I asked her where my sister-in-law was, and where should I put the present? I was anxious not to miss out on the food.

The girl got a careful blank expression on her face because I wasn’t making any sense. I put down the baby capsule, took my glasses out of my mouth and spoke properly. She still looked at me blankly.

We eventually worked out that I was at the wrong house and the wrong party. I’d been just seconds away from helping myself to a sausage roll.

A nice lady led me out, laughing merrily but I noticed she locked the front door firmly behind me.

I walked around the corner and saw another house with balloons and my mother coming down the driveway to take the capsule off me. She wasn’t at all surprised when she heard I’d walked into the wrong house. She’d really prefer to still drive me everywhere.

My sister-in-law’s sister gave me a necklace to wear. “If someone hears you say the word ‘baby’ you’ve got to give them your necklace,” she explained. “The person with the most necklaces wins a prize.”
“OK, hand it over,” I said.
“Pardon?”
“Your necklace – you just said the word baby.”
She started taking it off, looking sad, “But I had to explain the rules to you!”
“No, no, I was only joking,” I said. “Look! I’ve got a baby! OK, now we’re even.”

I was trying to be jaunty.

Once, when I was ten, I tried to be jaunty at the corner shop on the way home from school. There was a teenage girl who worked there who I greatly admired. After I ordered my bag of mixed lollies, I thought I would toss my coin to her, in a sort of flippant, cool move. Except the girl misunderstood my intentions and snarled “How rude!” Well. I was crushed. Devastated. In floods of tears. Later that day my mother drove me back to the corner shop so we could both explain that I hadn’t meant to be rude – the opposite in fact! “She was just trying to be funny,” my mother said to the man who owned the shop. I can still see his baffled face. The girl I’d offended had gone home. He had no idea what we were talking about.

Never take a sausage roll until you’ve confirmed you’re at the right party.
Be careful when you’re being jaunty.

These are the lessons I will try to pass on to my children.