Saying 'yes' .......

Crikey - the year has been whizzing past and it is nearly time to go into that phase of looking back over the year that was and musing about the one to come.  There are still a few engagements left on the work calendar but things are winding down. Already there are whispers about Christmas functions ... Before you can say 'Jack Skellington' we will be hanging Christmas ornaments and sending letters to Sandy Claws.

This year did not turn out at all like I expected. It has had unanticipated busynesses and things not going according to plan. I have been involved in projects, invited places and given some lovely and exciting opportunities that weren't on my radar at all this time last year. I have traveled far more than I anticipated, and I will be off travelling again before the year is out. I was commissioned to write some small things and got to try my hand at something new, writing a skit for Wild Things Magazine, a children's quarterly put out by Forest and Bird (Issue 132 Spring/Koanga 2016). I enjoyed the process much more than I thought I might, accompanied as it was by the discovery that in the end, despite my fears, this wasn't a skill that lay outside my abilities.

I have an informal rule of saying 'yes' to everything (unless it involves me being in two places at once) which I almost always adhere to, and so far this has turned out way better than I expected. Without that rule I would be cocooned in my comfort zone without any of the new skills and experiences I have picked up because I ignored my inner voice and said 'yes.' Of course it means I feel anxious before everything. If you live on the far edge of the envelope this is hard to avoid. Should I discover a means of managing this I will let you know.

 Next year currently looms as a vast sea of potential with almost no fixed points apart from family events and if experience has taught me nothing else, I know that things will turn up: opportunities, invites, requests and my own ideas and efforts that I can run, jump and play with to see what shakes out. And if 2017 turns out to be a quiet one, this too will be good. I have a list of Plan B's for these times and like the book piles beside our beds this never gets shorter. It would be good to cross a few things off the list faster than I add things.

This year too I got to launch Fuzzy Doodle in June. There was a lovely blushworthy review of the book on Radio New Zealand today by John McIntyre from The Children's Bookshop which you can listen to here if you like. 

And next weekend on Saturday November 5th I will be giving another workshop on writing picture books at Selwyn College.  Info and registration can be found here.