20th September - A Wedding and a new book!
It’s been a massive couple of months but I finally have some time on my hands.
Firstly, a wedding, yes, that of my eldest child, Emerald. She has married the most wonderful man that we are now proud to call our son. The day, weatherwise could not have been more perfect and held in the Dandenong Ranges, the scenery was immaculate. Emerald’s ridiculous organisational skills made for a day that ran as smooth as silk. Shout out to my brother Marcus and his gorgeous wife Lorraine, who officiated the ceremony, and his beautiful wife Lorraine who ran things around the chapel. The reception was a bag of love and laughter and plenty of dancing.
Now that I have some time on my hands, with school holidys arriving just in time, I’m back to writing! Yep, another manuscript is on its way to the editor. That collection of short stories that I’ve mentioned before, should be ready for release in the next few weeks. Date to be confirmed. Just tidying up some loose ends.
This is the premise:
On a sunbed in the Thailand sun, on a girls holiday, a couple of friends and I were laughing, chilling, talking about life as girls do. The topic of past loves came up and one of the group – let’s call her Shirley – began to talk about the one that got away, her first love; his name was Billy and even though it was so long ago, she never forgot him. There were tears and commiserations. “But everybody’s got a Billy”, Shirley said with a sigh. My writer’s brain went into overdrive, as it can sometimes do and I floated the idea, which she got quite excited about. It had to be real. Real people, real experiences. When I returned home from my trip, I was so excited, I put out the call for contributors, first from my friends and then out on my socials. At first the response was lacklustre. I guess most people don’t want to rehash memories that should remain in the past and I completely understood that. I also understood that there was such a lack of time that even though some people wanted to, they didn’t have the time to commit or didn’t know how to write it down. I composed a set of questions, prompts, if you like, and some used it, others went on a memory trip all of their own account. But it was lovely that so many gave of their time and experiences and reading through them, I could understand why others were so hesitant to do so. Some of these stories are filled with pain, sometimes physical pain, some are beautiful forever love stories, but each of them is unique and remains personal to the contributor. And so, the result is this collection of stories, taken from real life stories of people’s Billy.
More on that soon.
Until then…