Festival director of the Margaret River Readers and Writers Festival has invited me to run a Find Your Creative Mojo workshop with Andy Macleod at this years festival. The Margs festival has been an old favourite of mine and Andy and I had such a great response when we ran the Find Your Creative Mojo … Continue reading Mojo Workshop part of the Biggest Writers Festival Outside of Perth
“I’m LOVING YOUR BOOK. I bought it just because I know how awesome you are but OMG I’ve definitely done myself a favour. I love how you write." – Joelene Lavrick from Life Lessons Australia:Emotional Fitness & Mind Management "Really appreciated complete lack of pretension, and the absence of patronising language. Overall the book really … Continue reading Praise for Find Your Creative Mojo
You may have seen the cover of Find Your Creative Mojo in bookshops, library shelves or around on social media, but the distinctive red cover didn't start out that way. I'm going to take you behind the messy, yet interesting scenes of how a book cover comes about. I’ll go right back to my early … Continue reading What really goes on behind the scenes to make a book cover
Back in 2001, this used to be called 'Fuel Bar'. After only a year of messing around with abstract painting techniques, I held an exhibition there as part of the Art Rage Fringe Festival. The festival was asking for submissions from new and experimental artists and I thought 'stuff it' and sent them some photos … Continue reading Find Your Own Lane
At the top of the stairs is unit No. 6, 600 William Street Perth. I was 25 and it’s the little one-bedroom apartment where I called home back in 1999 On a whim, I bought a typewriter at one those boxing day sales, one that had a screen so small it only showed one line … Continue reading It all started from a cheap typewriter
This is the chair I sit in and stare off into space. I put on some ambient chill music, sit back and let my mind shift down a gear and meander slowly, taking the scenic route through my imagination. I could be ‘out’ for 5 minutes or thirty minutes. I get an instinctual urge to … Continue reading Why staring out the window is good for mental health and productivity
Back in 2011, I was in a meeting with my boss when my phone rang embarrassingly in my pocket. Realising I should have switched it to silent, we both waited awkwardly until it rang out. Thirty seconds later, the familiar ding of a message came through. After the meeting, I looked at the number, it … Continue reading How I got my first book published …and what I learned.
A rainy day trip to Perth yielded some fantastic photo ops.
People often say that because I do so much stuff I can’t possibly doubt myself. Yes, I can write books, I can pitch to publishers, I can spend an entire day talking to over 200 school kids, I can sit on stage and be interviewed at writer’s festivals, I’m not afraid to enter my photography … Continue reading What to do when self-doubt creeps in like a stray cat to ransack the biscuits..
Take your ideas out of your head and do something with them. Take out a sketch book and sketch. Open up a notebook and jot down notes. Take your phone out and take photos. Don't be afraid to be the quirky one hiding in the shrubbery at a Mozart recital sketching the Cellist. (like this … Continue reading Take your ideas out of your head
