Jacaranda Snow

Have you ever been so excited that you're up at 4am?

Hello! That's me right now. I've had the biggest week, where -- honestly -- my dreams are coming true. What I want more than anything is to inspire you and light you up about yours. That's why I want to tell you about the picture book I've been working on since 2015...

JACARANDA SNOW is an optimism and flow book for kids. It shows kids that they're in charge of one thing, always: their thoughts.

By choosing their thoughts, kids can change their worlds. Better-feeing thoughts lead to better-feeling kids. Right? Right.

Now over to you. And your dreams...

You are beautiful, just as you are today. You are enough, right now, like this.

But maybe you're a flower with this tiny ant crawling across your petals. The ant has the power to drive you crazy. You can ignore it, swat it away, pretend there are no ants...but still: it's there. That's your dream, you know, the one you aren't telling anybody about? Because you're too old, or too young, or too unknown (or too famous?) or too serious or too tired or too much of a perfectionist to start??

That dream of yours is the ant, crawling around your brain, trying to remind you of this: I AM HERE! Little but mighty. Irritating, but busy!

Are you taking steps or waiting? Are you walking forward, or avoiding?

Let me gently say, making your own dreams come true is so worth it.

Dreams have a way of wanting to get OUT into the world. And I know this: if I can free mine at 50, you can free yours, too.

<My puppy eating the Wombat puppet that my publisher sent me. My book contract's on the table! Yay!>

Thanks for all your cheerleading of my journey! Thanks for being on my side!

Feel free to share your thoughts in the Comments or send me a message on Instagram.

Catherine x

PS. Want to celebrate with me? And help?! Pre-sales help a publisher see if people are interested in a book. To read a blurb and order JACARANDA SNOW, you can go here.

We'll post JACARANDA SNOW to you mid-2018, with love from Sydney! JACARANDA SNOW will be available online and in shops as well.

Liz Gilbert Big Magic

Christmas is coming -- and I wish I could send each one of you a beautifully gift-wrapped copy of this book.  Elizabeth Gilbert's Big Magic.

If you can, will you pick it up for yourself?

I'd love to know you're thinking about your own creative journey.

What will 2017 bring for you? What will you make or do?

Fear may not be your roadblock, but it certainly is mine. And fear is what Big Magic tackles head on. Read this:

Liz, come over for a coffee and a caramel slice! Let's talk for a few thousand hours about how scary it is to step up and try...

She answers those fears with one simple question.

In this brand new year, I hope your answer is YES.

Get Ready to De-Stress

This was my lunch on Friday.

I know, I know...so bad! But I've had a lot on this week, and chocolate is my Boyfriend. Ha!

Everything happens end of November. Christmas prep, finishing off projects before summer holidays, and if you live in Australia, end of school year. 

You know what this means: teacher gifts, concerts, gingerbread houses, finding yet another dress to wear. Plus I was decorating the school hall with a fabulous friend for the Year 6 Graduation Dinner (high school starts in Year 7 in Australia). 

Just generally overcommitting. You??

On top of this craziness, I signed up for a Literary Speed Dating event. That's why I had a chocolate lunch. Someone opened a Max Brenner right across from the conference centre, so what was I supposed to do?

You might be curious about Literary Speed Dating. It was my first time. You rush into a conference room and get in the publisher's queue. You have 3 minutes to pitch. A bell rings and you get a YES (send it to me) or a HMMMM...THANKS FOR COMING! LOVE YOUR DRESS! 

I was a little nervous, but it went well.

Amidst all the hustle, I got a text from one of the Heart Girls, my forever writing friends. She's very funny and her books are hilarious. I was rabbiting on about parties in December and how we should all just relax and breathe...and she sent this:

So true :) 

Happy end-of-November, everyone!

When It's Meant To Be...

We've been on a beach holiday for a couple of days. Australia, you are a beauty queen.

Sparkly ocean:

Scruffy, lovable kangaroos:

Deserted white sand beaches at twilight.

I see it so clearly because I'm an immigrant. Australia has opened her arms to me. 

Want to hear a surprising story?

My father wanted to migrate here from the Canadian prairies in the 1940s. He was a struggling farmer; he thought he'd try his luck on a sheep station in Australia. But my mother (also named Catherine Greer) was too in love with Canada. She didn't want to leave her family or her country, everything she knew as home.

So his was a dream, stilled.

Fast forward 50+ years. I met my dashing naval officer, who asked me to marry him. Then he said, 'But...I'm moving to Australia.' Back then, he was a navigator of warships, headhunted by the Royal Australian Navy.

I said yes. To everything: marriage, Australia, adventure, change.

Taking flight is hard. Wobbly, but good.

I like to think, when I look at my Australian family and remember my father's dream, that it was meant to be. That I was meant to be Australian.

This week I got a call. The kind that makes you run around a shopping mall and scream while calling your girlfriends. (Or maybe that's just me??) A picture book I wrote, Jacaranda Snow, about child poverty in Australia, was selected from a slush pile by a fabulous publisher.

(This is how it works: thousands of manuscripts languish in the slush pile at every publishing house. To get chosen is a MIRACLE. But that's only the first cut. The editor calls you and says he/she loves it BUT they have to fight for their choice in a monthly editorial meeting. It's like winning a scholarship to a major university. Or finding the person of your dreams using a dating website. Hard, hard, hard. But possible.)

I hope she wins.

I hope Jacaranda Snow is published because I wrote it for Australia: for all her invisible kids, the four kids out of 28 in every classroom who live with poverty every day.

So as I was in the mall screaming into my iPhone to Jules (you know Jules Van Mil, the stylish writer from my blog), she said:

I hope it's meant to be!

I wonder if -- all those years ago -- Australia opened her arms to me so I could open people's eyes to those invisible children.

Maybe.

Maybe not.

But even if I have to weather a disappointing NO, Australia has been an incredible YES to my family.

Thank you for holding us safe in your strong, sandy arms.

Hello? Is this thing on?

If I were in the von Trapp family, I would be the last one to pop out and say 'Cuckoo.' I was the little girl on the stairs pretending to be asleep, while her older and more capable siblings did the song and dance routine.

I was last, but not least.

Because I had a secret.

There was a wild cowgirl inside me who, one day, would jump up and yell. Dance. Sing. Write.

So here I am. I've written a novel that I believe in. And because of my book and being a new author, I'm getting used to the idea of tending my own little corner of the Internet garden. 

It feels very strange out here, online: like being in outer space, and I don't know where the Ladies' Room is. 

Maybe that's because I don't Facebook or Tweet or Pinterest or Instagram; I've always been busy enough with living in real life. Figuring out how to get the dog walked plus fit in my run, what to do with chicken (again) for dinner, how early I have to leave to pick up teenage rowers from the boat shed, when to Facetime my mum, writing, editing, coffee-ing, being a friend, being a wife, getting into the city and on and on...

But I'm happy that I've arrived online. Planted seeds. Dug around a bit. Watered the soil.

And I'm happy you're here, reading. Thank you!