Write now!

I attended my second, once-per-term, teacher-librarians' district meeting today (back into the swing of a decade ago, when I was last practising as a teacher-librarian in schools!). It was great to be in such a positive, enthusiastic atmosphere with like-minded professionals. One of the guest speakers was Lee FitzGerald, a friend and former "Scan" editor. It was great to catch up with her and hear all the brave and exciting teacher-librarian challenges she's trying out in her school.

At one point, there were three "Scan" editors standing together over afternoon tea: Lee, the current editor Cath, and yours truly! A photo opportunity, but noone had a camera. Someone suggested we were perhaps the "three wise monkeys" and Cath quickly claimed being the one with her hands over her mouth. We were interrupted before assigning the other two monkeys.

Towards the end of the session, a teacher-librarian recognised me by my name tag, and gave me a great compliment about the quality of my book reviews in "Scan" over the years. What a buzz! I've been reviewing books and teaching resources for "Scan" since the early 90s, and I've now become quite accustomed to writing a pithy review in only 100 words; it's quite a skill to convey as much evaluative information as possible in such a short paragraph, and I guess I forget that these reviews get read and appreciated - even anticipated - by people.

"What else do you write?" she asked.

Mmmmm. "Nothing that's ever earned my agent a commission," I admitted guiltily. (Hi Selwa!)

I'm really going to have to fix this, you know... I now have about five skeletal children's book projects in my head, and on random computer files. As I walk to and from work each day, the words and ideas flow so easily. But when the computer gets turned on, they just don't transpose into something tangible. I end up playing on various bbs sites, telling myself I'm writing, but it's not really helping my word count. (Maybe I'm the fourth monkey? The unwise one, with his hands in his pockets?)

This blog is keeping me writing more regularly, sure, but I very much need to get regimented and show some real progress with my writing projects. Okay, the first of the month is almost here: a new beginning?