Archive for March, 2007

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One of my children’s short stories gets highly commended

March 26th, 2007 by janet

In the post today, I received another nice surprise. It was a list of the results from the 3rd Kathleen Julia Bates Memorial Writing Competition for an unpublished short story. Because I was receiving the results, I thought I must have missed out.

But there, under the “Highly Commended” heading was my name! My story, ‘Splash Down’ wasn’t one of the three prize winners, but it was acknowledged as being up there amongst the best stories. One hundred and thirty three stories were submitted for this competition.

‘Splash Down’ is a story about a ten year old boy who has a fear of water slides. He is at a birthday party with all his friends when it comes time to riding the big slide. He has to confront his fear under the gaze of a bully and ends up performing a sensational stunt, whilst the bully makes a mess of his entry into the pool.

It’s so nice to know that my writing is on track, that more practise will only improve the quality of my stories. That matches with the feedback I’m getting in my novel writing course. The remark on last week’s submission was that my scenes are getting better and better. It just goes to show that practise does make perfect.

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Posted by janet Posted in Writing | No Comments »


A Long Guide Dog Tale

March 25th, 2007 by janet

A couple of weeks ago, I went to dinner at my neighbor’s place. There was another couple there who I’d met once before. The woman knew I was a cyclist, so started asking me about how I, as a blind person, could ride a bike. It was time to have some fun!

‘So does Lucy pull you along on the bike?’ she asked.

‘Oh yeah, she’s really good,’ I said, a glass of gin and tonic in my hand that had more gin than tonic, I suspect.

‘Wow, that’s amazing! Is she fast?’

‘Is she ever, especially down hill. She really picks up speed then.’

The rest of the group are silent, intrigued by our conversation, waiting for me to land this poor woman.

‘So how does she tell you when to turn?’

I think I hear a smirk from one of the others.

‘Oh, she just pulls me round the corners. I follow.’

‘Gee whiz, that is so incredible!’

Then I can’t stand it any longer. I’d nearly said that Lucy barks once for left and twice for right, but it’s too much. The others start rolling around when I let this gullible woman know that I ride a tandem, that Lucy has nothing to do with my bike riding.

She probably went red, but I couldn’t see it.

Maybe one day they’ll train guide dogs to pull bikes.

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Posted by janet Posted in Cycling, Funny stuff, Guide dogs | No Comments »


Writing the Novel

March 23rd, 2007 by janet

I’m into week three of my intensive writing course and I’m just loving it.

For the first time ever, I’m so focused on my young adult novel. I’m living it and breathing it. Each night when I go to bed, I start creating the next scene or rethink the scene I’ve just written. And because I’m “in the zone”, the story is taking shape and developing in a way that I never thought it would.

The difference between being able to get stuck in now and not before I think is threefold: firstly, we were encouraged right from the start to set weekly goals which included strategies to achieving these goals; secondly, I was pushed to submit at least one piece of work a week to benefit from the feedback and the tutor’s expertise; and thirdly, getting positive feedback on my work and being able to discuss styles and techniques, as well as plots and subplots.

This week, I started on a couple of scenes where I needed to do some research. One of my characters has an acquired brain injury and wanders from home. She is only twenty years old and her father works full time as a police officer. He can’t get enough care in the home to ensure her safety. So I needed to find a GPS personal locator that would set off an alarm or something to alert the father to the fact that his daughter had wandered from home.

I rang the Alzheimer’s Association of WA to see if they knew of any such devices. I did this after searching on the internet for GPS systems and finding one that would have been perfect if it wasn’t for the wearer having to activate the device. I got a really helpful person at the Association who had the answer I needed. Now I can write that scene with confidence, knowing that what I am describing is not ficticious.

It’s really exciting when things come together like this. The more I get into my novel, the more engrossed I am becoming. Even wehn this course finishes in about two months, I know I will keep up the weekly goals and get this book completed.

I always talk to high school kids about the importance of setting goals. But it really relies on self-discipline. Even I have to keep reminding myself how important it is to set goals.

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Posted by janet Posted in Books, Motivation, Writing | No Comments »


More on the Boyup Brook Book Bonanza

March 22nd, 2007 by janet

I just found the link to the website for this event. To get there, click here

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Boyup Brook Book Bonanza in May

March 22nd, 2007 by janet

I received an invitation to be part of the Boyup Brook Book Bonanza which is being held on 19 and 20 May in the Town Hall. It’s a two day festival where you can browse amongst books of all genres, enter competitions, meet the authors and attend talks.

Boyup Brook is a beautiful little country town in the South West of Western Australia. What a perfect place to sample new books and read them in a peaceful environment.

I’m heading down there with copies of ‘Beyond the Red Door’, my autobiography. So if you come along, please say ‘hi’.
It’s a great chance for Lucy, my guide dog, to have a romp in the country. I’m staying on a farm not far from the township. Lucy will be in seventh heaven. Having a run before and after each day’s activities at the hall will satisfy her. Not that she doesn’t like meeting and greeting people – she loves it. But lying around all day is pretty tough on her, so tiring her out beforehand works well.

Hope you can make it to the book bonanza. For more info on ‘Beyond the Red Door’, go to www.beyondthereddoor.com

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Posted by janet Posted in Books, Guide dogs | No Comments »


The Freeway Bike Hike

March 19th, 2007 by janet

You can’t take the athlete out of the athlete, and so with my sights set on getting a personal best, I set off to the Perth Freeway Bike Hike yesterday with my slick green tandem. I’d told my front rider, Beau, that with all the training we’d been doing, we were sure to go faster this year – we’ve done two freeway bike hikes to date.

But he reminded me that we were older, and so bound to start slowing down. Not a nice thought, and I wasn’t about to give in to age. So right from the start, I put in everything I had to beat the stopwatch.

Well, we did beat it! Our time this year was 41 minutes and 48 seconds, compared to last year when we did 42 minutes and 2 seconds. We chopped off a whopping 14 seconds! Now that’s good in my books, especially considering we had a head wind, and that we are both ageing. Our average speed was 41.9 km/hr. Not bad!

For those of you who don’t live in Perth, the Freeway Bike Hike is a fund-raising event for asthma held every year. This year, nearly 8,000 bikes participated. It’s not meant to be a race, but for those of us who are serious recreational cyclists, it’s just that. The freeway north is closed to all traffic for a 30 km stretch, and we get to ride through the tunnel that is normally closed to bikes. This alone is great fun, not to mention flying up the freeway which is smooth and a pleasure to ride on.

So next year, my goal is to shave off another few seconds. I haven’t told Beau yet. I’ll have to break it to him gently.

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Posted by janet Posted in Cycling, Motivation | No Comments »


Celebrating International Womens Day on the Radio

March 13th, 2007 by janet

International Womens Day was last Thursday, March 8. I’d thought about going along to one of the many events that I’d heard about through email, but decided I was just too busy. And so the day passed me by.

But not entirely. I got a call on Thursday asking me if I’d be part of a panel of women to participate in a segment on the ABC’s morning show with Geoff Hutchinson. It was the After 11 segment which runs for an hour. I agreed, not really knowing what I’d manage to come up with that would be of any interest.

The session turned out to be a lot of fun. There were four of us – an MP, a state netball coach, an ex-governor’s wife and me. I don’t think any of us were sure how it would go, what we would say, but we ended up having a lot to say.

I’m not sure how the host, Geoff Hutchinson, felt during the session. We challenged him on a few male attitudes about women. What was particularly interesting was the way women in politics are viewed, how comments are made about how they look, sound etc, and yet this doesn’t happen for men.

Geoff gave us a quote from Jane Fonda (sorry, I’m not sure how to spell her last tname) which said something like: ‘You either shut up and say nothing, or you speak out and learn from your mistakes’. We were all asked to respond to that. And despite our age differences, with the ex-governor’s wife being in her 70s or 80s, we all said we couldn’t ‘shut up’, that we always spoke out, especially when we came across injustices.

I went in worried but came out exhilarated. And I think that reflects one very important quality women have. And that is, women are good at networking, forming communities of similar interest, and communicating.

I look forward to another opportunity to be a part of a radio program. It’s fun and interesting watching how it all works. I’m glad I just have to answer questions and not keep an eye on monitors, the producer signalling through the window, press buttons and make things happen when they should.  

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Posted by janet Posted in Life lessons, Speaking | No Comments »


Prize Winning Short Story On My Site

March 13th, 2007 by janet

I know I promised this ages ago, but honestly, I’ve been flat out! This writing course I’m doing is fantastic, but very time consuming. Add to that the fact that I’m trying to run my business as well, and you’ll understand why it’s been so hard to get back here. Plus, the weather has been super hot, and I couldn’t even turn on my computer for about three days.

But I’ve put ‘Sophie’s Rose’, the first prize winner in the Fellowship of Australian Writers (Vic) 2006 National Literary Award on my site now. You can read it here

I’ve included some notes about how I came up with the idea and what I wanted to achieve.

So happy reading!

Oh by the way, the young adult novel is coming along nicely. It’s so good to have goals for one thing, and a mentor/teacher reading your work for another. This is going to be the best thing I ever did for my writing career.

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Posted by janet Posted in Books, Writing | 1 Comment »


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