It'll be just like starting over...

It takes a lot to get me moving. I dabbled with running in my 20s until my knees said no and I love hiking in nature or as a way of exploring new countries because the novelty and greenery is enough to distract me from the actual effort. But moving doesn’t come naturally to me. It’s something I have to make myself do. A couple of years ago I dutifully joined a women’s strength training gym and now weight train twice a week (as women are told they must do once they get north of 40 lest their bones turn to dust). Much to my surprise, I enjoy it. Focussing on form and repetitive movements quiets my otherwise constantly chittering brain and lifting heavy things makes me feel tough, like no publishing rejection or awkward social encounter can hurt me. I often have to drag myself to the chilly warehouse where we lift, but I never regret going.

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But between pausing my membership recently for an overseas holiday and then again too soon when I managed to seriously injure my neck and shoulder doing ABSOLUTELY NOTHING, I feel like when I finally get back to it my body and brain will have forgotten how to lift and I’ll be too scared to do much in case I injure myself again. I never managed to lift enough or eat enough chicken and broccoli that I could actually SEE the new muscles I was building but I knew they were there – deep down. But it’s cruel how quickly they disappear when you stop moving, how fast you find yourself back at the start line.

It’s the same with writing. This year I’ve been focussed on starting two new jobs and trying to come up with ways to promote the Ella series now that the final book is out (at the end of this month!). I’ve also been in the editing trenches, both for Ella and the Call of the Wild and two upcoming picture books with NLA Publishing and Affirm. Between all of this, I haven’t written more than a handful of new sentences in more months than I care to count. And the longer I’m away from that kind of writing, the more I can feel the neural pathways becoming weedy and impassable. When I do sit down in rare snatches of free time – 15 minutes before the morning work/school rush or late at night when everyone is asleep – I quickly get stuck, overwhelmed or bored and my brain wanders. It’s tempting to scream: YOU KNOW HOW TO DO THIS YOU’VE DONE IT BEFORE! But sometimes we have to accept the painfully humbling journey of learning things over and over (and over) again.

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This morning I woke with nothing I had to do and nowhere I had to be until later. The house was still asleep. I made coffee and set a timer on my phone. I opened a document, a picture book manuscript from years ago that suddenly feels exceptionally timely but needs a rewrite. Just do one pomodoro, I told myself. Twenty-five minutes. You can manage that. I nearly made it all the way to the end, too.

This is how we teach ourselves to write, to focus, to lift again. Sometimes you have to go back to the very beginning, and trust that you’ll get back to where you were eventually. The time passes anyway, so you might as well be working on something you enjoy.

Ella and the Amazing Frog Orchestra was recently shortlisted for the Younger Readers category of the Speech Pathology Book of the Year Awards which was a thrill! Winners announced in October. So proud of Ella and this little book that could.

Over the next little while you can find me teaching a workshop for grown ups about tapping into your own childhood memories and imagination to write for kids at Knox Library on July 25 (the place I first fell in love with books as a kid!) register here, an online Storytime featuring Ella and the Call of the Wild for SciFest 2026 on Monday 17 August (keep an eye on the website for details on how to register), a Fabulous Frogs session at Malvern Library on August 29 and a couple of school sessions for Book Week.

I’m hoping to see as many of you as possible at the TWO events celebrating the Ella and the Frogs series finally being complete. Melbournians, put Saturday 5 September at 2pm in your diary for a party at The Little Bookroom featuring fellow authors Deborah Frenkel (The Truck Cat) and Kiah Thomas (The Callers) as well as jelly frog-in-a-ponds (while they last) and Sydneysiders, keep Saturday 12 September at 2pm free for a party at Gleebooks in Glebe in which I will get to share the stage with my Ella co-creator, the very talented Hykie Breeze.

The Ending Writes Itself, an entertaining publishing horror story about writers of different genres who are summoned to a remote Scottish island to compete for the chance to ghostwrite the ending of a famous thriller writer's book, after he died before he could finish it. Packed with murder mystery farce and literary satire, for fans of Agatha Christie and Yellowface.

The Studio. Watching this after reading The Ending Writes Itself the parallels are unsubtle – anywhere art and commerce meet there is bound to be heartbreak and hypocrisy and disappointment (but also hilarity! and plenty of cameos from legendary actors and directors). Also the final season of Hacks. Still recovering. What a perfect gut punch of an ending to one of the best things I’ve seen on TV in recent years. I never understand the many writers who brag about never watching TV, it’s just storytelling in another form and there are some brilliant stories gracing our screens at the moment.

The KidLit pod, a brand new kidlit podcast by New Zealand author and my writing pal from way back, Shara Curlett. Loads of great conversations with amazing writers. If you’re interested in any aspect of kidlit, be sure to check it out.