When I decided twenty years ago that I wanted to write children’s books, I didn’t know that I would truly embrace it and how it would become a major part of my every day. Within a year of my decision to write and while I was undertaking my Diploma of Professional Writing and Editing at Box Hill TAFE, I had a book accepted by Cengage Learning for the education market followed by another one the year after. I realised I could write something publishable. It was a great motivation. Within the next year or two, I signed two more contracts with trade publishers. One was a very small publisher who ended up deciding that they couldn’t afford to publish my picture book, and the other a junior novel with a good publisher in WA, who eventually passed even though I’d signed a contract. These experiences taught me that there are no guarantees and that I had to keep working hard. There were years when I slowed down on the writing front as I spent solid time raising our two daughters, but the writing never left me and the desire to keep going grew stronger, despite many many rejections.
During the past six years I became more determined to create better work and hoped that eventually, someone would connect with my stories. I wrote tons of ‘practice’ stories, that I thought were great, but they really weren’t ready. I entered competitions, joined SCBWI in 2013 and Writers Victoria and more recently the CBCA. I attended Literary Speed Dating, joined a US group in 2014 called 12x12 which has an amazing support base for new writers, followed groups like Kidlit411 which is chock full of information, subscribed to Buzz Words, Pass It On, Magpies Magazine, and followed authors and editors on Twitter taking in their generous helpful information. I submitted stories to publishers, took webinars, got critiques, found a critique group through SCBWI and goodness knows how many other things. I got several acceptances for short stories and poems in The School Magazine. Then in 2017 my first trade book, an early reader, was released with Wombat Books. That felt great! Then I had my first trade picture book published by MidnightSun. That felt great too! Then MidnightSun accepted my second picture book which is due out in 2020. I felt I was on the right track and my confidence rose.