Launch

Journeymama has launched her first novel and it is now available for purchase.

Go visit her here and follow the links.

Quick, go, run.

"The Eve Tree" awaits you.

You'll fall in love with Molly, Jack, Catherine and the entire family. And you will cry buckets of tears. The good kind of tears, you know, those tears that remind you how amazing life is.

Happy reading all, and congratulations Rae - may you and your characters go from strength to strength.

Words

Journeymama's words from her novel:

"Catherine continued. 'We don't all have the same vessel to work with. If you're pouring dribbles from your leaky tin cup, but you keep on filling and pouring, it counts the same as when you're a sea that breaks waves over all the folks around you.'

Molly stared at her mother."

The Eve Tree

"She understood history and that hidden cord that tied mother to daughter for generations upon end. But Molly was a woman with an aversion to the ladder that Catherine's life offered her. She would rather climb a sheer rock face than admit she was accepting rung after rung of help from her mother."

Journeymama's words, from her first novel.

The Eve Tree

Journey Mama launches her book on May 25th (this Wednesday).

I have been reading Rae's blog for the last four years; her words and photographs have brought me so much joy. Throughout those years Rae was also busy writing her first novel, and I always hoped that I would one day get to read it.

So here's proof that dreams do come true. Never mind Rae's dream of having a published novel, I'm talking about my dream of reading it. Priorities people, priorities. It's all about me.

I'm fortunate enough to have a copy of "The Eve Tree" in my greedy little hands today and I'm already loving it so much (I'm about a quarter of the way in) that I'm trying to slow my reading down. I'm also marking pages which I particularly love, here's one sentence I want to swaddle and cuddle and tell it just how much I love it:

"She told cheese tales and yogurt yarns, she saved up praise from customers like oats, to throw into her does' feed bags while she sat with them."

For the next three days, leading up to the launch, I'll be pitching a few of Rae's gorgeous gems your way. Small, beautifully polished teasers. Perfectly crafted, fire-burnished diamonds.

More tomorrow.

For Coffeelady

If I could get my act together I would magic up a lovely new banner and start my fourth blogging year with a bang. Oh well, not this month, but eventually. Perhaps. I need a new template which won't squash my videos and I need to fix up some old links. My blog is a reflection of my real house - serviceable, comfortable, and in need of repair and some tender loving care.

When I started blogging it wasn't fashionable, it was actually considered to be kind of weird and creepy. I was too embarrassed to tell my friends. I often thought there might be something wrong with me because I loved it so much. I was afraid that it was a symptom of my introverted nature, which I realise now (duh) is not actually an illness. I'm allowed to be introverted, it's OK.

And that reminds me of my first blog get-together in Melbourne when I got up and belly-danced. As I returned to my seat I turned to Suse and said "You know, I'm actually an introvert," and she laughed her lovely head off. It shocked me that she laughed so hard. Good times I tell you, good times.

Which reminds me of my last visit to Manhattan. Before I left I had brunch with my brother-in-law and his partner who asked me what I had done during my visit. I briefly described the time I spent with my blog friends Blackbird, Eurolush and the lurker B. They were thrilled with my stories and wrote me an email afterwards saying that I was one of the coolest people they know. And, I must tell you, they are two Ultra Cool Guys, I mean one of them is a stylist and the other advised me on the best place to buy vintage-style glasses. Need I say more?

So things have changed a lot here in blogland. One of my friends said to me the other day "You should start a blog!" That really made me laugh. There are also a whole bunch of Aussie bloggers who only started a year or two ago and have NO IDEA that there are Aussie bloggers who have been around for years and years and have an entire network of international blog-buddies. I mean, I consider myself an apprentice to the great Aussie bloggers in my network, and I worship at their feet. Those newcomers are clueless. Also, they use their real names. I mean, how boring is that? I mean sure Kim is Kim, but she's really Kim From Allconsuming; and Mary is still totally Blue Mountains Mary in my mind. Yeah, I know, I'm really Eleanor. But YOU DON'T KNOW MY LAST NAME. That's the fun, it's a secret society, I mean honestly, can you imagine Blackbird or Duyvken or Eurolush or Babelbabe or Coffeelady being anything but? Pfftt.

Maybe Twitter has something to do with it? Yes, I think it might. In Twitter you're meant to look up a person YOU KNOW or HAVE HEARD OF and follow them. And all these famous people and business people are using it to be popular. Oh please, that's so not blogging. Blogging is about making connections over a period of time by using serendipity in combination with kindness, humour and a sprinkling of craft. The craft of blogging, or (in my case especially) the craft of commentbox filling. It's not a popularity contest, it's friendship.

Of course, everything changes. Of course it does.

The nanny next door has moved on to her next baby. Blue barks at my neighbour's kitchen window because he doesn't trust the new nanny yet. She's a gorgeous young thing who we see through the window as she texts in-between making her charges their breakfast. Ninny never texted, she only called people, in emergencies. Things change.

Eurolush will be leaving Germany in a month. Can you believe it? I know, I mean, if that doesn't make you realise that things change then what does? But you know what's even crazier? The idea that if I hadn't taken that "risk" and started blogging I would never have met Eurolush. I would never have known that a person like her (well, she is her, there's only one Eurolush, but you know what I mean) existed in a tiny German village. Sometimes I think she exists only for my benefit, a cute little virtual Eurolush who came into my blogworld when I needed her most - to make me smile and laugh and be extremely jealous. My own tiny dancer, my own little Eurolush marionette with a plastic beer mug glued to her hand, my own Eurolush garden gnome who scares the crap out of me when she suddenly winks, my own Eurolush paper doll with a dirndl and a mushroom toy and a cute paper Tex to take on walks.

I'm going to stop now.

E x