Reviewing goals, avoiding resolutions This year I went from being a part-time writer/part-time student to being a full-time writer. My official blurb line after a publicity workshop is, ‘I am a writer. I write dead-end town fiction for teenagers.’ I updated my goals mid-year in the interests of balancing study and work, and there’s nothing like waiting until there’s no time left to do anything more to check over them. So here it goes: Complete 10,000-word research project (

Diversity is a hot topic in young adult book titles set for release in Australia in 2016. Publishers travelled from all over the country to Melbourne last night, spruiking their upcoming releases with the five-minute time limit strictly enforced by the tambourine of doom in a crazy reverse Literary Speed Dating session where the publishers were pitching to the punters. Run by the Centre for Youth Literature (CYL) and held at the State Library of Victoria in Melbourne, the gro

After November, Christmas should be a breeze. Today I’m washing clothes, catching up on paperwork, finishing Christmas shopping, and making long-overdue phone calls because NaNoWriMo is over for another year and work-life balance can be somewhat restored. I hit the 50,000-word target on November 24, and was happy dancing to end the month with 65,437 words – and even more ecstatic that for the first time in three years I stayed on one project and didn’t panic and change after