Author: josephinetalepeddler

Happy New Year with Bogart, Bacall, and Tracy Anderson

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Happy New Year to all from a sweltering Sydney oven.
I’m wilting in the heat. I find this city unbearable at this time of year. If you’re lucky enough to live near the water it would ease the pressure but the inner-city is an airless, dusty battery-hen cage.
Wishing you a joyous New Year and I’m looking forward to 2011.
Here is my comfort book.
 
 I re-read it over Christmas in two days. Despite knowing it so well, I couldn’t put it down. Amazing how you get a slightly different angle with the characters every time. It has such a sinister, dark edge to it. Clever, wonderful Daphne du Maurier.
And no surprises as to what I’ve been doing (see Tracy Anderson DVD).
That’s my big new year resolution. Writing is such a fattening job.
If you follow my Facebook, you’ll see that I’m not a fan of the fireworks at this time of year. I’ve had a mini-rant there about the waste of money, cost to the environment and the damage to the harbour, not to mention how it frightens animals. I found several others who also hate the fireworks. How about you? Are you pro the big bangs or, like me, believe it’s fiddling whilst Rome burns?
With all the Green perceptions globally and the fears for how fragile the planet is, I’m dismayed that firework displays are still so popular. I’ve been criticised in the past for my anti-fireworks stance and told that I don’t like people to enjoy magic.
Personally, I find far more magic, splendour and meaning in a simple blade of grass than in millions of dollars polluting the night skies with transient explosions of coloured lights – but that’s just me. I’m not even a fan of going out on New Year’s Eve. The Scribe and I spent a cosy evening with a bottle of Grand Marnier and The Big Sleep. We still aren’t sure what exactly happened in that confusing, twisty movie but Bacall and Bogart are magic. 
Off to try to catch some of the tiny breeze in our courtyard.
xx 
the big sleep image source 

Kate Morton Didn’t Give Up

josephinetalepeddler 2 Comments
 
 
 Kate Morton has been a huge international publishing success. Her books sold in the millions to 38 countries. Recently she was interviewed by Mariella Frostup on one of my favourite shows, The UK Book Show with Nigella Lawson and another guest. She has struck publishing gold.  
 
I’ve known Kate for years as we share the same agent the wonderful Selwa Anthony. Below is a photograph taken at the Sydney Launch of Kate’s debut book, The Shifting Fog (released in the UK as The House At Riverton). This photo always makes me smile as it looks as if I”m trying to rub some of Kate’s success off on me. 

  

From left: Kate Morton, me wearing the purple chook feather, Kate Forsyth (who has previously written an Inspiration post for Tale Peddler), and the very Sassy Leigh Redhead. 

The reason why Kate is my pick for an Inspiration post is not her great success but rather her tenacity. She had previously written two books which were both turned down by publishers before she wrote The Shifting Fog.

I just love stories like this. I believe when it comes to writing, you have to have the hide of an elephant and be able to pick yourself up off the floor after many crushing disappointments.

We all know stories of people like JK Rowling, Louisa May Alcott (who had to work as a servant when Little Women was being floated around) or Stephen King (Carrie received 30 rejections before it went onto enormous success). The English crime writer John Creasey received 753 rejection slips and went on to publish over 500 books. 

I know personally how tough it can get in the world of publishing. You can spend years investing all your being into one book that can go nowhere.

You can possess the talent, the discipline, the marketing appeal, the best ideas in the world in spades. But if you don’t have tenacity and determination – well, publishing is a game of snakes and ladders, often with more snakes on the board than ladders.

You have to keep rolling that dice, stay pure to the work and never give in. If you need a dose of stamina power, here’s a link to an article of some great souls who refused to give up.

Enjoy your week. Keep creative.

 

“Flops are a part of life’s menu
and I’ve never been a girl to miss out on any of the courses.”
~ Rosalind Russell 

 kate morton top image source

Exciting Spaces

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This week in the steamy heat I went to meet my editor at my agent’s house. It was very exciting to hear the edit is nearly completed and to be discussing such things as covers. It makes me realise that there really is going to be a book with a beautiful cover. 

And speaking of books with beautiful covers,I am mad about the new Frankie book SPACES.

So much loveliness it makes my heart ache. It’s filled with inspiring, creative people and their lovely spaces. People like Allison from Lark, Emily Chalmers from CARAVAN and Tif from Dottie Angel. All the pretty, whimsical, retro-twisty you would expect from FRANKIE. 

It is now time for Mangos, chilled grapes, sun-hats. The streets are already so hot you melt a little when you walk.

I am hidden away in my cool, brick terrace researching Australian artists in the 1940s.

The characters are forming so quickly. I now have their breath on my face. Breathing, breathing, impatiently waiting for me to start.   xx     

 

Winning the Shoe

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Hello,

I’ve shortlisted for the annual Sisters in Crime Scarlet Stiletto Award for short story writing. It’s a great honour to shortlist again as I’ve placed in this competition so many times (including winning the coveted Scarlet Stiletto First Place). 

Here is a picture of a blonder me delighted with my shoe in St Kilda, 2001.

For many years I’ve been after that longed-for second shoe to make a double-set, but despite coming near (and picking up the Kerry Greenwood Award twice for Malice Domestic), the second shoe still eludes me. I suspect I am the most shortlisted entrant ever, which goes to show how stubborn and pig-headed I can be when I want something!Apart from the second shoe, I do enjoy the challenge of writing for the Scarlet Stiletto every year. I’m so used to writing longer novels that I enjoy creating a smaller world at around 5000 words.

I’m head down in research for my current book, Currawong House. This is one of my favourite parts of the process: the shift, the meditative state as you feel the story start to move from the deepest parts of your being.

To me it is a sacred journey, the craft of story. This weekend I am taking time off to go on a spiritual retreat where I can contemplate lots of different things and gaze at a moon and stars that aren’t hidden by the smog of the city.

Thanks for visiting me. Keep Creative. xx    

 

Blackheath Mist

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Hello,

Some of you may have noticed my old website has gone off the air. I loved it and deeply appreciate all the hard work my webmistress/friend Rhondda put into creating it. But I couldn’t update it easily – I’m so pants at Dreamweaver and really don’t have much time to spare with writing and motherhood.

I have my Tale Peddler blog for my more personal online musings but I still wanted to have a website more streamlined towards writing and the inspirations and thoughts that feed my books. And so here is my new website, where you will find those posts. The domain name remains www.josephinepennicott.com

If you are more interested in the chit-chat family gossip, thoughts on interior design, films, and the odd Johnny Depp post, then Tale Peddler is where you might like to visit.

Sometimes the posts will overlap. Perhaps in the future I might join them together, as I have done in the post below:

We are now home from the misty mountains where I travelled for research for ‘Currawong House’. The trip was totally blissful. So difficult to return to gritty Sydney after the peace in Blackheath and very pretty Leura.

Bluebells and daffodils were everywhere and Blackheath kindly turned on a wonderful mist for us. Sadly, she kept the snow back until our return much to Daisy’s disgust. We ate holiday type food, read holiday books, lazed and shopped in antique shops. I woke predawn everyday to write in my notebook, walk through dew-soaked grass and follow the Currawongs.

Since our return we have had drama emergency rushes to the hospital with Daisy. Our five-year-old daughter has the distinction of being one of the rare children with gallstones. Sunshine is soaking Sydney streets. I love this time of year when the terraces in the old streets seem bathed in light.

The book is forming itself. I feel the story beginning to rise like mist in Blackheath streets.

Thank you for visiting me. xx

I Am Flying: Poets Cottage Has Sold

josephinetalepeddler 4 Comments
I am flying. I am finding it difficult to take in at the moment, even though I’ve known for a couple of weeks. Yesterday – Spring Equinox – I spent the morning at my agent’s signing a two-book deal with Pan Macmillan.

I am swooping over the chimney tops and breaking apart clouds as I say those words again. I’ve been writing now for six years out of contract. Poets Cottage took me three years to write as I struggled with juggling motherhood and writing.

It has been three years since I stood outside the ‘real Poets Cottage’ in the Tasmanian evening light watching the full moon rise over her roof and the shadows move in the garden.

She gave her story to me then and I passed it on.
I am soaring with my dreams amongst the stars now. Swoosh! Swoosh!
Watch me swoop!
The Spring Equinox is a time of balance, contemplation, celebration and giving thanks. I have a lot to celebrate tonight.
Other things in my life are not so good. The shadows are there with the ongoing health problems of a close family member.
But tonight I will wave to you from the sky wherever you are. If you look out of your window to the night. I am smiling back. xx