After a lovely drive down to the Gold Coast from the Bundaberg region, I met up with my friend and The Ten Penners co-ordinator Jill Smith. Jill gave me my books and our lovely team shirt (thank you to Absolute Apparel for supply us and arranging the logo on the shirts). I love the shirt! It is soft and lightweight and a fabulous colour! We will look an impressive team. 😀
We sorted, signed books and checked our costumes for the launch, we want to bring a couple of our characters to life. Jill is dressing up as Floriece, her whacky witch. I am converting my beekeeping suit to an astronaut suit (hopefully not damaging it). I will be Jeremy Albatros rocket maker and space dude. His suit is not mentioned in the story; however, he would have picked up the suit from Mrs Dusty, the lovely charity shop worker, who keeps special pieces to help him with his project.
Baking was on the agenda this afternoon and we have plenty of yummy morsels to treat our avid fans! Hope to see you at the book launch.
We had so much fun at our book launch! Thanks to Books etc.. for hosting us. We meet lots of lovely people and I really enjoyed having the company of good friends before I drive back to the farm. Enjoy the photo’s below featuring three of our wonderful characters we brought to lfe, Jill’s witch, Kate’s pixie detective and my boy inventor & astronaut.
I am so happy to be able to chat about our new book “Backyard Beasts & Curious Capers”! It is our fourth anthology from The Ten Penners, our first came out in 2004 and this is when we adopted our group name. Previously, we had the boring standard title of adults writing for children – a sub group of the Gold Coast Writer’s Association (GCWA). I joined the association in approximately 2002. My daughter was just a toddler and I thought I’ll join the sub group to help me write stories for her. The group was fabulous. Sharing knowledge, which most writers do, and our group was just fun because kid’s books are fun. Maria O’Donnell was the group co-ordinator at the time and early in 2004 we took a TAFE class together. I had missed a writing meeting and she informed me that we were going to try our hand at a self publication. Cool! I said. Maria said they already had the title… “Shock! Horror! Gasp!” And so, we all began compiling our many stories together, some had come from the monthly meeting exercises, some were new creations, some were gems that had been sitting in the bottom drawer waiting to be released into the world. As there were ten of us at the time, we called ourselves “The Ten Penners”. The name has simply stuck as our group name ever since. Anna, who was a drama teacher, taught us dance moves to The Monster Mash song and we dressed up as witches and ghouls for the launch at the GCWA monthly meeting at Pacific Fair’s old community room. We made a grand impression! The next year, Maria stepped down and asked me to be co-ordinator, which I accepted. She needed a rest after the massive effort of producing a book and she needed time for her grandkids.
I found out exactly how demanding compiling a book was in 2009 when we produced Fan-tas-tic-al Tales. The mix of authors changed but the fun didn’t stop, and we had some of our children put on a play to showcase our characters for the launch. If you think writing stories, and editing is hard, then add the type setting and book layouts to get the book to be ready for publication. Then more editing, tweaking, and being relieved and excited to have the book in your hands!
Then… marketing! The efforts don’t stop once the book is written. Many writers that are even published by professional houses, still need to self-promote. Lots of time and effort go into getting the book “out there”. It is all worth it in the end, the elated feelings you get from producing a book and being called an author, is wonderful. It is what we strive for as authors, to have our stories read and liked by young minds and have them comment on how much they enjoyed your stories, it makes every effort worth it. This time around we even progressed to school visits and did writing workshops for the Gold Coast Gifted and Talented at Hillcrest, Benowa Primary, Surfers Paradise Primary, Broadbeach Primary and Emanuel College.
In between the first two books, some GCWA members at our Christmas party suggested the association needed a kids sub group. I was elected to run the meetings! I did have fun. I thought I could inspire my daughter who I dragged along with me! It wasn’t really her, but I think it helped a bit. It did increase membership for a short while and the “Writers Force” as we called the group, flourished. We did the Katharine Susannah Prichard Book in a day challenge, two years in a row. There were some very talented authors and I hope they are still writing today.
The next few years, I conducted our monthly meeting as usual, sharing snippets of interesting writing tips, inspiring imaginative prose and honing our craft to create more gems from our exercises. We wanted another book and in 2017 “Mystery, Mayhem & Magic” was launched at Broadbeach library. We had a great dress up again and lots of fun. Another new line up of authors. I had help from Kate & Ellie who are excellent at editing. Kate also did the collating of the stories and getting the final publishing.
I was very thankful for the help. Unfortunately, it all boils down to one person in the end and I know Kate was as exhausted as I had been with my first time publishing. Being the avid book producer she is, Kate has helped again with our latest book.
Over the sixteen years, I enjoyed being co-ordinator, but one does get a bit stale. Jill Smith was not only a perfect candidate, but she has also been impressing everyone with her organising skills and driving us to yet another successful publication with “Backyard Beasts & Curious Capers”!
I hope you all buy a copy from your favourite author or join us to celebrate at the launch or buy some books for Christmas presents, because reading is the way to improve the mind, and it is fun.
Below are our Blog Tour details, be sure to check out the other authors and reviewers. The posts will always be there on everyone’s blog so you can catch up at any time.
It is always a good time to start new things, now! Don’t put it off “Just Do It” as the successful Nike slogan goes. Me? I’m a lifelong procrastinator. I even bought a book called Stop Procrastinating… which I should finish one day, hahaha. But the time has come to get things sorted … quickly. You see, even though I have not updated my blog in a couple of years or so, I have been keeping very busy, and writing, thankfully, has been in the top ten position of things to get done. Soon, my beloved writing group The Ten Penners are launching their fourth anthology titled “Backyard Beasts & Curious Capers” a collection of wonderful stories for children ages 8 to 12 years, on Saturday 21st October 2023 at Books Etc… in the Paradise Centre, Surfers Paradise between 11am and 2pm. So, stay tuned to this page (and The Ten Penners page) to find out more about our coming celebrations!
So another Halloween has passed. I’ve posted a couple of pictures for you.
Now I’m into Na-No-Wri-Mo and am counting down my 50, 000 words for November. Since I have never won this goal, I am determined to finish my Steampunk novel I have been working off and on for the past few years. Hopefully this year it will get finished! Wish me luck for no distractions and for will power to get the job done! I need it!
I must say, I have planned a little bit better than past years, My Preptober wasn’t as intense as it could have been, but I did make a more user-friendly calendar that is targeting my hours available more positively than in past years. With two big birthday parties to celebrate and my first Society of Children’s Book Writer’s and Illustrator’s (SCBWI) conference to attend all day next Sunday, on top of work and home duties, it will be an intense month. I have already knocked off the list of events, my Ten Penners meeting yesterday (which we discussed and worked on Na-No-Wri-Mo), and my daughter’s uni exhibit that was very interesting and entertaining last Friday night. One proud mummy here.
I’m very excited to be attending the SCBWI conference next week. I booked a spot for a manuscript appraisal and at the moment I’m very interested in the feedback. However, next week, I will probably have a plethora of emotional states running through me in anticipation! We shall see.
Well for yet another year I am attempting to beat the 50,000 word goal for Na No Wri Mo! Or National Novel Writing Month, which is actually worldwide these days! This year, dare I say, I am determined to get there!
For the last couple of weeks, I have been trying to tie up loose ends that may keep me from getting distracted. It’s not the best month, honestly, the month before Christmas! Year end preparations for work or school, thankfully my daughter is in uni now and we don’t have those end of year commitments. My daughter and I had fun making cute Halloween biscuits and giving out lollies to the trick or treaters tonight as you can see from our photo’s.
I think my state of mind will be more focused now, as long as I keep away from the television and Facebook! Lucky for me I have finished season 3 of Lucifer and binged on The Vampire Diaries over 4 or 5 weeks, didn’t realise what I was missing! Now I’m in the middle of Downton Abbey, but I can put that aside to write and catch the rest later.
So please wish me luck as I step into November’s abyss of words and make my creation of 50K plus words of pretty OK reading. If the goal is achieved, I will be happily editing over Christmas and looking forward to sending my baby in the the big wide world for the New Year! I just love dreaming. Now to make it a reality! 🙂
A bit of a catch up … it has, yet again, been quite a while since my last blog post but I have been busy, though not all writing. Here’s some of my highlights.
29th April I went to my first Supanova! I had a ball! I made sure to catch a couple of the presentations, one of which was Alan Tudyk from Firefly. He was great entertainment. Love seeing all the cosplayers in their wonderful creations. Hopefully next time I will be in costume too! I bought a couple of T-shirts for my daughter and also made a special stop to see author Samuel Colbran. Of course, I bought his book ‘Lake Merrin‘ which I am currently reading.
On the 2nd May, fellow Ten Penner, Jill Smith and I made a visit to Burleigh Heads State School, with our mascot Plinko to chat about the writing of stories in our latest anthology Mystery, Mayhem and Magic. The kids were fabulous and the librarian Janina was a delight. Thank you Janina, so many happy memories there.
15th June, Incredibles 2! I took my daughter and her boyfriend to see the 18+ session at Pacific Fair. The night time, adults only session was a great idea for Event Cinemas! We sipped sweet cocktails, whilst enjoying the DJ and watching big kids play in the jumping castle before seeing the movie with no screaming kids. And it was a very good movie!
Wednesday 29th June, I won tickets from GC Weekend Edition to see the Australian movie Brothers’ Nest featuring Shane Jacobson and his real life brother Clayton. It did have dark undertones but it wasn’t as dark as I thought it was going to be. The pace was slow, but intriguing, it flowed well and I don’t think it warranted a quicker pace because of the unwinding of the story. The writing was good and the acting was good. It was rather disturbing but as one lady mentioned to me afterwards, “it was nice to not listen to an ocker accent from an Aussie movie. They just spoke plain Australian English.”
If I paid for the movie, I don’t think I would have been disappointed but the movie isn’t up there on my great movie list. There were some sad parts in it and for once I didn’t cry but my daughter, whom I dragged along, did shed a few tears.
The ending was great and had a couple of surprises as the events unfolded. I would give it a 7 out of ten.
On the 7th July which should have been our Ten Penners meeting at Broadbeach library, we were kicked out by the library for one of their famous Writers Block sessions. But being avid writers of more than one genre, most of us turned up to see the gorgeous Ally Blake give her talk about Romance writing! I loved her session. She has a wonderful conversational tone in her presentation and struck a heartfelt cord among most of us! I also had the opportunity to meet Ann Brady from the UK. Another children’s author she is delightful and joined myself and fellow Ten Penners for a chat over lunch at Pacific Fair after the workshop session.
21st July, I had a lovely windfall at the Gold Coast Writers Association meeting at Fradgley Hall Burleigh Heads. I won 2nd prize in the raffle – 3 books! “Flirting with the Moon” by Andrew McDermott and also his publishing guide “Yes You Can Publish Your Book!” The Publicious guide to self-publishing. Publicious is his publishing company and he was once our GCWA president. The third book “Inspire Your Fire” creative innovation through authorship by the current GCWA president Ocean Reeve and also a book publisher under his own name! Lots of talent here at GCWA.
I’m looking forward to reading these boys books but Andy’s Flirting with the Moon I had already bought a copy at last month’s meeting and devoured within a week, so I passed this one on to my friend Kate. Look out for my review coming up soon, it’s a wonderful read.
22nd July, our Gold Coast S.C.W.B.I. meeting at Crafted Coffee upstairs in The Kitchens, Robina Town Centre. I love getting together and chatting children’s stories with this group which is co-ordinated by the lovely Angela Sunde.
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I also had the chance to catch up again with Ann Brady a children’s author from the UK who is visiting her daughter. Jo Sandhu, and Candice Lemon-Scott pictured here with me.
So that’s my catch up, hopefully I won’t take as long with the next post. Have a beautiful winter. Marion 🙂
After a lovely creative morning with my fellow Ten Penners on Saturday, I have had quite a few cute little stories brewing in my mind. However, as usual, housework & gardening prevailed and today (Monday) I was bookkeeping again! Silly work always gets in the way. 😛
This afternoon though, I checked my email and wow, what a surprise! I am being featured in Pass It On (PIO). A fabulous ‘weekly, on-line, interactive, networking e-zine for those involved with or interested in the children’s writing & illustration industry.’ It’s a subscription e-zine so many of my friends and relatives won’t see it but I am so chuffed to be in there! Chatting about what I have done as a co-ordinator for my writing group The Ten Penners, a support group for adults writing for children, which is part of the Gold Coast Writer’s Association (GCWA). I love my group and love talking about what we are up to. After producing our third anthology Mystery, Mayhem & Magic last year, we are getting back to basics this year, with fun creative exercises and stimulating homework challenges. We always say we are the fun part of the GCWA! 🙂 And that is exactly how it feels.
So after an exciting end of the day. I think I should celebrate a little with some creative writing just to sharpen things up. I am hoping to get one little project of mine, up and out into the world this year. Wish me luck!
Saturday, my daughter and I volunteered yet again to set up the Christmas Tree on stage for Nerang Celebrates Christmas. We’ve done it so many times now, it’s like a given that we will do it and we do it with pleasure. Waking early and watching a shower come down before we arrived made it a little steamy but thankfully that was all the rain we had that day! It turned out to be glorious and the choir who practice so hard, could certainly give every other Christmas Carols event a good run for the money. I think they excelled even more this year! To top things off I even had a job as cameraman, taking a prime spot in the front of the stage to film. I had so much fun!!
Sunday, I went to a S.C.W.B.I. meet and greet and had a ball meeting new and old friends!
Thanks Maria for taking me in the group photo, it was lovely to meet you and had lots of fun taking selfies. Only one of mine was good enough to show here. I look forward to seeing yours!
Today we had our highly anticipated book launch and it was good! We had lots of fun dressing up and supplying custom crafted book marks, and lollies as prizes. I am loving my cake toppers with our logo and book cover, very special.
A big thank you to Gold Coast City Libraries for supplying tea, coffee and biscuits.
We are all looking forward to a little rest, there have been mammoth efforts all round. I really have a great team to work with. If you wish to purchase a book, I will have a shopping link on my blog soon but The Ten Penners have a page to place an order and pay by credit card through PayPal. You can also buy direct from your favourite author, Bookface Pacific Fair, Big B Burleigh Heads, Amazon and Kindle.
RRP $19.95
But for a short time you can buy from the authors for $15 .00.
Now after all this hard work, I will be participating in Na-No-Wri-Mo. Hopefully this year I will make the 50K word target!
It really has been a big week. To start, on Monday, Jill, Elli & I went to visit grades 2 & 3 at St. Joseph’s Catholic school at Brackenridge. We had a ball and the children submitted their colouring in pictures. There are so many good ones it will be hard to pick a winner! The lucky winners will receive a copy of The Ten Penners new book Mystery, Mayhem & Magic! If you or rather your child would like to be in the running to win a copy be sure to download a form Plinko-Colouring-In-Competition-2017_Booklaunch.
Entries must be received by email by the 1st November, 2017.
To finish my busy week, tomorrow we will be at The Lanes Halloween market on the corner of Bermuda St & Nerang – Broadbeach Rd, Mermaid Waters. 3pm to 9pm. Come and say Hello! pull up a hay bale and listen to us reading from our book!
But being avid writers of more than one genre, most of us turned up to see the gorgeous 
we are getting back to basics this year, with fun creative exercises and stimulating homework challenges. We always say we are the fun part of the GCWA! 🙂 And that is exactly how it feels.
Today we had our highly anticipated book launch and it was good! We had lots of fun dressing up and supplying custom crafted book marks, and lollies as prizes. I am loving my cake toppers with our logo and book cover, very special.
ge to place an order and pay by credit card through PayPal. You can also buy direct from your favourite author, Bookface Pacific Fair
, Big B Burleigh Heads, Amazon and Kindle.![20171104_094230[1]](https://marionmartineer.files.wordpress.com/2017/11/20171104_0942301.jpg)
![20171104_103248[1]](https://marionmartineer.files.wordpress.com/2017/11/20171104_1032481.jpg)
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Marion Martineer
Marion Martineer 