Jacinta Lou – Writer

Category: self belief

  • My Writing Journey: Successes and Future Goals for 2026

    My Writing Journey: Successes and Future Goals for 2026

    2025 has been and continues to be quite a year. In so many ways.

    On a personal level – I have had success with my writing. The highlight of course my contract with Wombat Books for two early readers.

    In addition with my adult writing I had a tribute to my Dad published in the latest Grieve Anthology. And one of my poems will be published in an upcoming anthology, Her Beauty and Her Terror.

    And, drum roll please, Jacinta Lou has appeared in print for the first time in a wonderful fundraising anthology of whimsy put together by Tasmanian author, Ann Martin.

    The Ballad of Jubal Jacques includes some of Tasmania’s best authors and illustrators. I might have to believe I’m a writer 🙂

    My stories, Aisha and the Olive Tree, and The Book are both in the style of fables and I really enjoyed writing them. The book is available on amazon and all proceeds are for refugees.

    So what is happening now? Well it’s been non stop writing and submitting. The submitting has been picture books. I live in hope I will publish one at some stage. But I’ve expanded my writing to include longer fiction for children.

    I entered a junior fiction short story into an anthology competition and I’m currently working on a young adult short story for another anthology competion.

    So next year I will continue to work on early readers and junior fiction generally and of course, picture books. But my major focus will be a young adult novel I shelved in 2021.

    I found the novel recently and I really enjoyed reading it so I think it’s worth finishing. I’m working with other kidlit novelists to hold each other accountable by setting targets. According to the schedule I have until March to complete the first draft. I’m thirty thousand words in so it feels achievable? What’s it about? Well all I will say for now is that it’s a thriller; full of mystery and intrigue!

    My goals for 2026? It will be the year I learn to build a new webpage. The year my first novel will be sent for appraisal and the year I learn all I can about marketing and school visits in preparation for my 2027 book launch.

    And like every writer, I’m also hoping for more contracts.

    2025 has been a challenging year for children around the world being subjected to hardships and danger no child should endure and if I could give those children one gift, it would be hope.

    Hope for humanity and hope for a peaceful and just future.

    I’m deciding to go forward into 2026 with hope!

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  • Celebrating My First Book Contract: A Writer’s Journey & Imposter Syndrome.

    Celebrating My First Book Contract: A Writer’s Journey & Imposter Syndrome.

    This week I was thrilled to announce I have a two book contract with Wombat books. Two early readers and I am absolutely thrilled. So thrilled and excited I have plastered the internet with the news. I may have gone a bit over board ?

    As writers we work alone. Writing, editing and thinking. Most of the work we create never sees the light of day. Dealing with rejection becomes a way of life. It can feel like a waste of time. I’m sure from the outside it looks like it. But writing is not just a calling. It’s a craft. A skill. And like any skill it requires practice.

    For the last few years I have been writing picture books. I have had success by being awarded an ASA/CA mentorship in 2024. I was also matched in the ASA’s Picture Book Matchmaker. My pitch resulted in a request from the publisher to see the manuscript. To date, there have been no contracts. Yet.

    So when I decided to enter my first attempt at an early reader into Wombat Books open submission in February this year, I did so with zero expectations.

    You can imagine my shock when they asked to see the manuscript!

    Months of rewrites followed and creating another book for the series, and I was offered a contract.

    Throughout the process I felt like the success of this story was unearned. It was my first attempt at an early reader. I had completed several junior fiction courses but hadn’t made it happen. I felt like an imposter.

    Imposter syndrome strikes again. And this is why we have writing groups. ( imposter or impostor? Both are correct so for consistancy on my blog I choose imposter! Despite AI underlining it. I choose to ignore AI)

    Without my kidlit community I wouldn’t have submitted this story. Without my fabulous critique buddies I would have given up on the edits and rewrites. Without their support and encouragement I would have failed to see that all my work on picture books had been the rehearsal for this moment. And without the perseverance of Wombat Books to get me over the line, I wouldn’t have made it.

    So even though we create in solitude – we succeed as a community!

    That’s why I have plastered the internet with my success. Not just for me, but for all the kidlit community.

    I promised myself a new website with my first contract so stay tuned while I try to make that a reality.

    I can’t wait to hold my books in my hands!

    Stand by for even MORE plastering of the internet!

    Thank you

    Jacinta Lou

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  • Getting on With Things

    Getting on With Things

    I don’t usually post twice in a day but I’m trying to learn how to use my website so here is another post!

    It’s been quite a year and I think I am closer to my publishing goal. I’ve been making slow and steady progress. In 2022, I joined groups and completed courses. In 2023, labelled by me as my ‘year of assessments’, I had lots of my stories assessed and ended the year with a successful pitch at the ASA literary speed dating event.

    In 2024, my year of mentoring, I was fortunate to be awarded a mentorship by the Australian Society of Authors/Copyright Agency for one of my picture books and I have been working with my mentor Kristina Shulz.

    At CYA my assessments went well and I’m seeing the improvement in my writing and in my confidence. My old friend, imposter syndrome, is still lurking in the wings, but having Kristina’s support has helped me believe in myself as a writer.

    One highlight this year was being long listed in the annual ‘Pitch It’ competition, so this morning I submitted that story to Affirm Press.

    I hate submitting, but it’s impossible to get published without going through the process, unless you publish the book yourself.

    I can barely get around social media and this webpage so I know I do not have the skill or patience to self publish, which leaves me throwing my hat in the ring for a shot at a traditional publishing contract.

    I’m enjoying rewriting and restructuring my stories, so the waiting and wondering isn’t too onerous, but like all aspiring writers, I can’t wait to get on with the job of publishing my stories.

    The kidlit community is a wonderful, supportive community. I have a fabulous critique group and other writer friends to chat to both online and locally. Everyone knows how hard it is to get a contract and we all cheer loudly when someone is successful. We are all a part of each other’s journeys even if it’s just to cheer!

    If I never get a contract, being a part of this community is worth it in itself, but I would really love to see one of many stories in print and see how an illustrator interprets my words.

    Fingers crossed 2025 is my year of contracts!

    You will be the first to know!

      • Would you like AI with that?

        Would you like AI with that?

        I feel like I can’t spend a day without some AI bot asking me if I need help. Well, I do need help! But sadly they won’t do the washing, feed the animals or change the sheets so I can just write. They would rather DO the writing! But that’s my job…isn’t it?

        It sounded like a bit of fun with new technology a few months ago, but, as they say, things are getting real. So what does that mean for aspiring creators? What does it mean for everyone?

        I’m old enough to remember when automatic teller machines were being proposed. I worked in my first job at the Reserve Bank in the clearing house, and on slow days we spent time chatting and we couldn’t imagine a world where tellers would be replaced. Just shows how limited our imaginations were.

        The clearing house was where cheques came to be sorted to be returned to their bank of origin. It was labour intensive, quite boring work, but it was how it was done. We would manually sort the cheques, then process them through a wiz bang sorting machine, make sure everything tallied. Then I would pack them in suitcases and carry them, with a guard, to the clearing house up stairs at the National Bank. Once there, we would swap our bundles and compare tallies and then take our own cheques back to our bank. That’s why it took so long for cheques to be cleared. It was manual work.

        That job no longer exists. Eight floors of the Reserve Bank in Hobart are no longer part of the bank and the clearing house? I think that disappeared in the late eighties. Technology made those jobs redundant and so those jobs went the way of other labour intensive jobs. I remember when my manager at the Commonwealth Employment Service lost his assistant. With a computer on his desk, it was more efficient for him to write his own correspondence. We did chuckle at the brevity of memos, sans capitals and punctuation, as a man who had never typed faced the reality of his new world.

        Jobs have been disappearing as technology takes over, but should it apply to human creativity? Is this a step too far?

        I read recently the creators of AI harvested the works of our most amazing creators to ‘teach’ AI how to write. Did they ask? No. Did they pay? No. Did they in any way honour the legal and moral copyright of lifetimes of incredibly hard work? No, they did not and legal action is being taken!

        It’s made me so angry that the creators of AI, who no doubt trademark and legally protect their programming, have completely ignored and disrespected the legal and moral rights of other creators!

        But where does that leave the aspiring writer, like myself? Is there any point? Well I say YES and I say it loudly. Writing comes from the soul and every writer is compelled to write. It’s part of them. Can AI do it better? Probably better than me, but should we let it?

        I can see the copyright notice in books changing to exclude being used for AI. Amazon has differentiated between AI produced and AI assisted. But do we need to do more? Or have we left it too late?

        Personally I think governments need to legislate to include humanity clauses, conferences and input before any new AI products are licensed but is that even enough? Creators are low paid, and therefore lack the power of huge tech companies. The future looks grim, but we can help.

        Buy books and art work you know was produced by people. Refuse to buy AI produced ‘fiction’ and ‘art’.

        There is a place for AI. It’s a great assistant. We have come too far to go back but we can choose how much it impacts our lives.

        AI could build me a website. I do lack in that department. But I promised myself the reward of paying a human to do it when I get my first contract and I’m sticking to that.

        So when the next bot asks me, ‘Do you want AI with that?’ My answer will be, no thanks. I’ll struggle on without it. The work, perfecting craft, learning new skills, is the soul of the journey. And creating IS a journey, not a destination.

        How will AI help or hinder your life?

        • Time to go on! – Submission ‘Stage Fright!’

          Time to go on! – Submission ‘Stage Fright!’

          Like most writers, I started writing books for children when my children were small. I’ve lost all trace of anything written back then, but I still have some scribblings I did for my eldest granddaughter, which I may resurrect at some stage.

          In 2021, I did a picture writing course with Zanni Louise through the Australian Writers Centre and I fell in love. I did another course in 2022 through The Sunshine House, and I sent out a couple of stories to the crashingly loud sound of silence!

          I have been active in critiques groups and the kidlit community, so I decided 2023 was the year of assessments. Time to get my existing stories into shape to send out into the world. Or to shelve them. I had assessments with editors and of course, CYA. It’s been hectic!

          So here I am in the closing scenes of 2023 getting ready to send my stories out into the world of publishers!

          I still don’t think they are ready and I’ve heard stories of writers who have taken decades to write the perfect story, but I’m not sure I have that amount of time, so ready or not, here they come!

          I have zero expectations, but it was my plan to have stories to send out, so I’m sticking to the plan!

          I belong to a couple of fabulous critique groups and one in particular has a very encouraging cheer leader who brings us along with her enthusiasm. Yes! We can do this! Eeek – I hope at least one of us has success. That’s the best thing about writing for children. Although we all strive for the same thing, there is no sense of competition and we genuinely celebrate other writer’s success. Well, maybe there is a little disappointment, but we are mostly very excited for every writer who succeeds!

          So, in the past week, I have entered two stories to ‘Pitch it’, run by Just Write for Kids Australia, yesterday I was successful in booking two spots in the Australian Society of Author’s Literary Speed dating, to be held later in October and I sent a story out to a publisher! Tomorrow I’ll be sending out more stories and then I will start work on my next batch, patiently waiting in the wings, to get them ready to go out into the world!

          I’m not great at sending things out. I seem to get ‘stage fright’ once I know I am writing a submission and I stutter and stammer and write ridiculous things in my cover letters. Well I did last year. I cringe thinking about it. But in my defence, I did have pneumonia, so everything made perfect sense at the time. And why is it, typos and repeated words etc ONLY become visible AFTER you hit send?

          It’s been a year, so hopefully there have been so many submissions, commissioning editors will have forgotten me. Please let them forget!

          So, I’m on track. My babies are going out into the big wide world of publishing and I wish them every success in finding a home. I will welcome them back at any time, but I may push them out somewhere else and give them the best chance. I really don’t want them to be homeless.

          Now to work out how to conquer ‘submission stage fright’ and write great covering letters! Ironically, I have never experienced actual stage fright. Perhaps writing means more to me 🙂

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        • Automatic to Manual

          Automatic to Manual

          I recently had to replace my car. I loved my X-Trail. I loved the number of cup holders, the storage space for all my bits, the comfy seats – if only the head gasket hadn’t blown. So now I have a much earlier model Honda CRV. It only has one cup holder, no compartments for all my bits and the seats are not as comfy, but unlike the X-Trail – it goes! Which is, after all, all you really want from a car. Also, unlike the X-Trail – it’s a manual!

          I learnt to drive in a manual. I had a 1956 Morris Minor bought with the money I saved working at the neighbour’s fish and chip shop my last couple of years of high school. I also had a 1975 Ford Escort van so I had something to drive and sleep in, when the Morris was being repaired. The thing with the Morris, and most early model cars, was there was no synch in first gear. Which meant you had to stop the car to go back into first. For those of you who have always driven automatics, just skim past.

          So on the day I went for my licence, I drove through Hobart peak hour traffic in second gear without ever going back to first for stops and starts. My father was in the back trying to nudge me to let me know, while the testing officer was completely oblivious. He had just won lotto. His mood was not going to be changed by my driving. I’m not sure I deserved my licence and to this day, I have never claimed to be a good driver. Not one single individual will argue the opposite!

          In the Army, I had to learn to drive land rovers and commodores! I didn’t apply to join Transport and drive trucks and no one suggested I go there, but for a few months I was the Commanding Officer’s driver. This was supposed to involve driving him around, but he insisted on driving most of the time, once we got outside the gates. I enjoyed driving back then. I drove the retiring RSM from Wodonga Vic to Perth WA in his land rover, towing a caravan and I drove from Melbourne to Townsville in my Escort van to take up my new post. I was a teenager. I knew no fear!

          To obtain my police driver’s licence so I could drive the cars with the flashing blue lights, I had to learn to drive all over again. I loved the skid pan. I think the point was to control the skid but I loved making the car skid harder. I was eventually granted a ‘D’ grade licence. I didn’t actually cause any accidents so they reluctantly passed me.

          Anyway – back to now and back to driving a manual car after twenty years in an automatic. It’s been a challenge. The biggest challenge has been remembering which gear I am in. I’ve crunched through a few trying to work it out but it just means I have to pay attention. And that made me reflect on how little attention I had paid to my driving when in an automatic. I just pushed the pedal and drove!

          I’m not a person who excels at automatic tasks. even typing, my brain keeps getting involved and trips me up. Back to the police academy and the list of things we had to achieve to graduate. One of them was to touch type at 30 words a minute. Some in our class could type three times that with ease but I struggled. Remember this was on a typewriter! On the rare occasion I just reacted and cut out the middle man, my fingers and eyes managed to get to the magical 30, but most of the time as soon as my brain realised things were happening without its involvement, fingers hit wrong keys or forgot where they were and the test failed. If only I could just type without thinking! But driving without thinking I achieved and I’m not sure that’s a good thing.

          At the police academy, we had to do a running commentary as we drove to ensure our brain was always present and so were we. How many of us are truly present when we are driving? How far ahead do you look? Are you watching to see if that driver coming out into traffic has seen you? Have you estimated how likely it is that the light will turn red before you reach it? What’s happening behind you? Have you looked?So much to think about but how many of us do it?

          So the point of this rather convoluted journey down memory lane is that going back to driving a manual has forced me to be present when I’m driving, if only so I can remember what gear I am in. Am I in fifth or third? If I go back and across will it be fourth or second? Driving is no longer an automatic task and I’m sure that’s the way it should be.

          The same with writing. I can and do sit down and write without thinking. These blog posts are more or less an automatic response to a prompt I have given myself and I just write what comes into my mind. Automatic. It’s ok. Most of the time it makes sense. It might even be entertaining but is it great writing?

          Writing is what happens when you switch off the automatic and go into manual. What gear am I in? Does this sentence belong here? Have I built up tension or can I go back to third? What’s this character even doing in my story? Do I need them? What is their role? Do I need to slow things down or speed up to reach the top? Writing requires the writer to be present and know which vehicle is being driven, in what gear and at what speed. The writer needs to be able to see what is coming and take the reader with them, not leave them on the side of the road waiting for an uber.

          Writing, like driving, requires skill and the ability to know where you are going and how to get there. It may be fun to stay in automatic and just write, just drive, but if you want to write things people will love to read, you need to go back to manual and keep working on the craft and skill that is writing!

          I’m still working on it:-)

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        • The Matildas

          The Matildas

          Tonight the Matildas will play the game of their lives on their road to the world cup. I’m excited and nervous, even though I am a very new fan.

          And I have a confession to make. I have never been into sport. Shock, horror, gasp! How can an Aussie NOT be into sport? I played sport in primary school. Netball and softball. But I was the player who tripped over and skun her knee on the cold asphalt surface. Netball in winter in Tasmania. I have scars.

          My softball position was left outfield but the number of balls I didn’t catch still gives me nightmares so I think my teammates would have preferred I was Left Right Out. So in high school I found myself enjoying the life of the nerdy kid who read books, spent lunch hours in the music room playing my trumpet and dancing!

          I never saw sport as something I would ever be good at and even if I was, I did kick a football further than my brother in primary school, there were limited opportunities for females to plan a career around sport.

          My love of dancing was inspired by a girl in my neighbourhood who would organise neighbourhood kids to meet every night to rehearse for a concert. We danced and played cut out cardboard instruments to her record collection, dressed in amazing outfits she made for us. On trend for the seventies. When I think about it now, this was the best after school care before that term was even a term! We lived in a pretty rough neighbourhood, so this teenager’s ingenuity probably kept a lot of us out of trouble. There weren’t many opportunities. Especially for families with only one car. (Tasmania has never had great public transport.) It certainly made some wonderful memories and inspired a love for dancing and the music of the seventies! So at high school my friends and I would create routines and strutt our stuff in the privacy of the music department.

          A couple of us eventually found dance classes, and it was dancing that lead me back to sport. Not as a player, but as a cheerleader for what was then, the state football league. The only role women had in football at that time.

          It was during this time and later, as a police officer, I saw behind the scenes of sport, male sport, and what I saw and experienced made me very determined not to reward these men by watching them play. I know, irrational, perhaps. Sport was now something I didn’t play or watch. Well, I did play badminton, and I took up running, but other than that, sport was not part of my life. Well unless I was in Melbourne and going to the MCG to watch cricket and yes, even a football match to honour my parents who had recently passed. They did love their sport! ( I often wonder if I was adopted.)

          So it wasn’t until my eldest granddaughter started talking about Sam Kerr, I took an interest.

          My granddaughter took up soccer, she started wearing clothes with Sam Kerr’s name or picture on them and a soccer goal appeared in the yard. Her family even organised their holidays around games this Sam Kerr was playing in! There was even a selfie!

          Time to investigate.

          I quickly educated myself and discovered the Matildas. That’s what you get for banning sport from your screens and not having free to air television. I’d missed out on seeing the rise of this amazing group of women who not only play great soccer (football) they devote their time to being the role models they themselves didn’t have. Hence Sam Kerr and the Matildas are household names and even I will watch tonight as they play England in the World Cup Semi final.

          I love how my granddaughters now have real role models in the world of sport. They certainly get a better opinion of sport than I did and the message, anything is possible with hard work.

          But why are they so inspirational? And what’s that got to do with writing? They are inspirational because they truly care about the sport. Not from a position of ego, but from a position of inspiring others. They work hard and are at the top of their sport because they have grit. They want to win, but they want the team to live on when they retire. They work hard to be professional athletes and they demonstrate that girls from all backgrounds can aspire to be a part of a sports team. Some are mums who want to show professional sport doesn’t have to stop when you have children.

          They have inspired many people, who, like me, have never taken an interest in sport. At the shop today a lively conversation was happening amongst a group of customers who were so pleased women’s sport was being played at this level and how much their children were enjoying it. The Matildas have created a buzz and they are showing us that hard work, determination and following your dreams may help you achieve them. Just having talent is not enough. You have to work on your craft, constantly improving and if you fall down, learn from it and move on.

          So back to writing. Hard work, determination and following your dreams may work there too. Talent is not enough. You have to work on your craft, constantly improving. And if you fall down, learn from it and continue on.

          Good luck Matildas! You truly are an inspiration, and not just to young girls. I saw an advert for walking soccer played locally. Am I game? Stay tuned!

          Matildas, you rock!

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        • Car Trouble and Comfort Zones

          Car Trouble and Comfort Zones

          Is there anything worse than car trouble? I’m sure there are a million things worse, but when you live in the bush with no public transport, car trouble can feel like the end of the world.

          But I’m a hermit, I hear you say, and that is true, but I still need to get to the shops, take my grandson to school and, most importantly, pick up books from the post office or the library. It’s a 30 km round trip, so too far to walk. Car trouble is serious!

          I’ve known my car was dying for a while, so only drove it when I had to while I saved for a replacement. But my anxiety driving it increased to the extent I had to take action.

          Facebook market place. I’ve always bought from car dealers, but as this last one came from a dealer with preexisting problems they wouldn’t cover, I saw no advantage going back, so I searched for vehicles, and more importantly, reputable sellers. It’s a minefield out there.

          My rusty investigative skills came in handy. If a deal looked too good to be true, I looked up the seller to see if they were even in Tasmania. Quite a few weren’t. If I answered an add and the seller was pushy or wanted a deposit before I’d even seen the car, block and move on. Eventually, I found a car advertised by someone with a mutual friend. Now that in no way guarantees the car, but I did trust the seller was a real person and I answered straight away. I now own that car and the mechanic said it was safe to drive and in good condition for its age. One problem solved.

          Now I had to sell my dying car. Still going but not healthy. Aha – this is the reason I buy from car yards. I can get rid of my other car with no hassles.

          I advertised on FB, making sure I worded the advert to specify the car was dying and only suitable for a mechanic or someone who wanted it for parts. I had zero expectations.

          Within minutes, my phone was blowing up with responses. Over thirty before I switched it off. The person I sold it to was initially very pushy, so I wouldn’t deal with him, but had I understood the industry, I would have sold my car for the asking price in five minutes. As it was, I sold it for the price I wanted within twenty minutes and organised to meet the next day to complete the transaction.

          I WAS NOT going to meet an unknown person with a tow truck in the bush at night! Some comfort zones are safety zones. No need to stretch those!

          It seems there is a whole word of people who buy cars like mine and rebuild, resell or scrap and getting in first is quite competitive, hence the pushiness. You learn something new with each new experience.

          So what has any of this got to do with writing picture books? I’m glad you asked. This year has been a year of stretching myself and gaining confidence in my writing and myself as a writer in a very competitive (but very kind and not pushy) industry. I’ve conquered some fears with CYA and I’m working up to submissions.

          Once upon a time I would never have e dreamt of selling a car on my own. Even buying filled me with dread. I tend to drive within the car’s capacity until I’m forced to take action.

          Parents are good sounding boards, even if they don’t know about the subject. Dad always knew the questions to ask and what to look for, but I’ve lost mine so this one, I had to do alone. And I think facing my fears with CYA made me strong enough to face my fears about buying and selling my car.

          I think if you aren’t putting yourself out of your comfort zone, just a bit, that zone shrinks and your world gets smaller. I’ve seen it in myself and others, especially after lockdowns and retirement.

          It’s easy to live a small life. But, as Malcolm Fraser once said, ‘life wasn’t meant to be easy!’

          What if you faced a fear or three and stretched what is comfortable? What would happen then? What if you made your life, ‘not easy’ a little bit at a time?

          For me – I now have a car I feel safe in and can leave the property more often. I also know I will never put up with a broken car because the process of changing it is hard.

          Stretching the comfort zone becomes an ever-increasing circle.

          I stretched by having assessments at CYA. That gave me the confidence to do something about my car and now I’ve done that and sorted out all the insurance, registrations, etc. I will use that sense of accomplishment to submit some stories.

          Coffee first!

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        • The Morning After CYA

          The Morning After CYA

          The CYA conference 2023 is over, oh and before I forget, CYA stands for Children, Young Adult, and Adult Writers’ and Illustrators’ Conference. Well worth a look for writers and illustrators of all genres. Any way, back to what I was saying. The conference is over so for me, getting manuscripts ready for the competitions, booking assessments and preparing submissions, attending assessments and the conference over four weekends on zoom has kept me busy from January till yesterday and I am exhausted.

          Was it worth it? Yes, I think so. Too tired to tell right now. But I’m going to say YES! I received some great feedback both positive and constructive and listened to some great presentations along the way. In the breaks we were put into breakout rooms on zoom and so it was also a great opportunity to meet other writers. I have a better idea of where my writing sits and even though no contracts were offered to a chorus of dancing unicorns, the dream is still alive. Well at least it will be once I’ve had some sleep.

          Assessments can be confusing and I’m sure I looked like a stunned mullet half the time as I worked my mind around the differing views of editors on the same manuscript. But that’s part of it. Finding a home for your writing is about finding the person who sees it the same way you do, or who can give you feedback to get it where you want it to go.

          It’s challenging sitting and listening to words that don’t support your vision of your amazing, perfectly crafted manuscript. And I’m sure it’s challenging for editors to give constructive feedback. It’s a lot easier to receive these words in written form via manuscript assessments, but I decided to do it via CYA this year and I’m glad I did. I think. I got to meet some amazing editors and there aren’t many opportunities to meet face to face, especially in Tasmania.

          My approach to assessments was just to listen and take notes as you only have 15 minutes to look at two picture books. So I probably bumbled through responses when asked questions. I wanted to know what they thought. But they wanted to know about me as well. I’ll be better prepared next time – and yes, there will be a next time.

          My only question was, do my stories have potential? And it seems the ones I had assessed do so now I have to do the ‘Verk’, as Jen Storer would say, and edit, rewrite, restructure until I feel they are ready for another assessment or I submit them to publishers. And that’s a whole other journey!

          Stay tuned as I work to keep the negative Nellie and imposter syndrome at bay!

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        • Finding My Tribe

          Finding My Tribe

          Writing is a solitary activity. And, unless you are writing to contracted deadlines, it’s purely voluntary. No-one is making you write! Well, except for that little voice in your head urging you on. Write, write, write! (Or is that just me?)

          The point is, we writers write because we want to. Write because we have to. Write because we need to communicate, clarify our thoughts, tell a story and we do it by writing.

          So if it’s such a solitary, self driven activity, what are writing festivals and groups all about? I must admit, I used to wonder why a group of writers wanted to get together. It seemed a weird thing for a bunch of predominately introverted people to want to do. People in large numbers (shiver) It didn’t seem like something I would ever enjoy.

          I’m a self-confessed loner, recluse, hermit, and I’m generally happy with my own company. But since entering the world of children’s literature, the kidlit community, I’ve found myself joining groups, attending more live events and fully immersing myself in the community and loving it.

          I have discovered since calling myself a writer, like most things in life, it’s better with friends. Meeting other writers either in person or online, becoming part of a community who will understand your struggles, celebrate your wins, commiserate on your rejections, adds a depth to this writing gig I couldn’t have imagined. And I love it!

          Maybe I’ve found my tribe.

          Writing is still a solitary endeavour. It’s still up to me if I write or not, but now I can talk to others who understand what I experience without explanation. They just get it because it’s their reality too.

          And the very best part, for me, is supporting other writers on their journey.

          So whether I get published or not, I will celebrate everyone who does, because I have some idea what they went through to get there.

          So as I sit at my computer, looking out at the bush, I can talk to other writers, read their stories and see their journey. Celebrate their wins. Empathise with their losses. Have long conversations about all things kidlit.

          What we rarely discuss is why we do it. Why we struggle for weeks, months, years to find that perfect word to finish a story. Why we rewrite, restructure, re edit our writing to prepare it for submission. Why we agonise over every typo we find after we hit submit. Why we share our rejections and know each one is a step closer to a yes.

          We already know. It’s in our blood.

          We are a tribe.

          ©Jacinta Lou

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