Actually, it’s a whole boxful of books, just delivered by the delightful local parcel lady.
Nothing nicer in the writing life than finally holding a copy of the book you’ve sweated blood over.
Happy day!
The Green Page
If you’ve ever heard me talk about Pearl Verses the World, my first verse novel, you may have also heard me talk about the piece of green paper on which the first poem of the book was written.
You see, one night when I was getting into bed, a few lines of poetry came into my head, and I had to get up, find a piece of paper, and write them down. Each time I tried to turn the light off and get some rest, a few more lines came to me, and I had to jump out of bed and write them down. Finally, my beloved started to get restless with all the late-night poetry making, and I had to give it a rest.
That poem, though, didn’t let me rest, and over the coming days I drafted more poems – until I realised that there was a story being told and that the voice, who was Pearl, was not going to leave me be until I wrote her tale. I’ll be forever grateful to Pearl for choosing me and being my muse that night.
So, I’ve talked about this piece of green paper many times, but I’ve never before produced the piece of paper. Today I was looking for something else and I found my Pearl Verses the World file. Lo and behold, in that file was the piece of paper I’d talked about so often.
If you’re interested, here it is:
What surprises me still, as it has done before, is how little that first draft changed from that late night session until publication. I added the missing ‘s’ to sometimes on the first line and later, after the story was accepted, the line ‘at least I have shade’ was removed.
Everything else I’ve ever written has needed writing and rewriting and editing and agonising and – well, you get the picture. Whatever struck me that night and in the weeks that followed as I wrote Pearl’s story was special. Sometimes I think it would be lovely it writing was always so easy but then I think that maybe that once in a lifetime bit of magic was just that – a one-off. It gave me faith in my writing abilities at a time when my self-belief was low. And it gave me this beautiful book:
Sharing Pearl’s world changed my own world, so this little piece of green paper is something I’ll forever treasure.
New Book
My next book has just gone off to the printers, and as I breath a sigh of relief, I am also doing a happy dance. I can’t wait to share the story of Stan Moore with the world. Although he’s a fictional character, his experiences fighting at Gallipoli are representative of the experiences of thousands of young Australian men in 1915.
While you have to wait to February to read the book, here’s a sneak peek of the cover:
Stunning, isn’t it?
Happy-sad
When I’m asked why I write sad books, I often reply that I don’t: I write happy books with sad things in t
hem, and I believe that. Roses are Blue seems sad, because there’s a girl going through a very tough time, and a mother who is permanently disabled, and there isn’t much there to be happy about. But ultimately, I hope I’ve written a story about hope. about finding happiness in the midst of these trying times. If a reader finishes reading that book, or Pearl Verses the World, or Toppling, and feels nothing but sad, then I have failed in what I’m trying to do. I want to make people feel good, not bad.
Having said that, it’s possible to make people happy without first making them sad. There are plenty of children’s books that do that, and I have written some of those which I am very proud of. Nobody feels sad about the story of Head Hog, or The Floatingest Frog. These are books which, I hope,make people smile.
So, why do I write the sad books then? (Again, I argue that they are actually happy books, but can see why people describe them that way.)
I have visited a lot of schools this year, which is a wonderful wonderful part of my job. I get to read from my books, talk about myself and meet the kids who read my books, or who might read my books. At every one of those schools, there is a child who has had really sad things happen in their lives. Sometimes those chidlren keep those sad stories hidden inside themselves, but sometimes they share them with with me.
It is an honour when a child trusts me or connects with me enough to tell me that they, too, have lost a grandparent, like Pearl does, or that they too have a family member with a disability. Last year a gorgeous girl and her classmates told me of her struggle with cancer, like Dominic in Toppling.
Sometimes, chidlren tell me things that they haven’t told their friends or their teachers. And sometimes, I’m guessing, they don’t tell me, because they don’t want to talk about it, and that is fine too.
And, for every school I do visit, there are hundreds – thousands – of schools I can’t visit. But there are children in those schools, everywhere in the world, who have really sad things in their lives. In the end, don’t we all have tough stuff happen to us sometime in our life?
I put this sad stuff into my books because it’s real. I wish it wasn’t. I wish children didn’t have to have terrible things happen in their lives. I really do.
What I hope is that by writing about these topics, I might help children, in some small way, see that even in the midst of sadness, even in the midst of tough times, there can be happiness.
Mandy: The Book I Wished I’d Written
I’ve been blogging lately about poems which have impacted on me, and there are more of these to come, but today I want to talk about a book which did the same. Of course there are many many books which have stayed with me long after I read them. Often I don’t remember all the details of such a book – just the way it left me feeling, especially if I read it a long time ago.
I remember a lot about Mandy which I first read when I was about seven years old. The book wasn’t mine. It belonged to one of my sisters, and I don’t know if it was recommended to me or if I just picked it from the shelf. I’m pretty sure the first thing which attracted me was the title. Mandy was, along with Wendy and Melissa, one of my favourite names. These were names I considered pretty, and secretly longed to be called. Now that I’m older, I can’t see what I didn’t like about my own name, but back then, I longed for a prettier name.
My copy of Mandy, a treasured possession.
Anyway, that’s by the by. I read Mandy, and I loved it. It was a book that I wanted to hug. It had a character I wanted to hug. It had sad bits – Mandy was an orphan, stuck in an orphanage, and seemingly without hope of being adopted. It also had happy bits – most especially a happy ending. And it had a secret place: Mandy discovered an abandoned cottage in the woods next door to the orphanage and decided it would be hers.
So I loved this book, and secretly wished the book was mine and, more importantly, that I had written it. I wanted so much to have created that world, that character, that happy ending. So, I got myself an old exercise book and I rewrote that story, in a very thinly described take-off. My version was called Tereasa (my main character as named after my best friend – though I misspelt Teresa). Of course, I was 7 and my version was not as good as the original, but I was very proud of that book, which was my first ever novel. So proud that I wrapped it up and gave it to my mum for Christmas, who was equally as proud that her little girl had written a book, and so kept that book for thirty years, before very kindly giving it back to me after I became a published author, so that I could show it off.
Tereasa, another treasured possession: the first novel I ever wrote.
One of the things about books you have loved is that sometimes, when you reread them, they don’t live up to your memories. However, I’m pleased to say that a few years ago I tracked down a copy of Mandy on eBay, and finally owned my own copy. A funny thing happened when it arrived in the mail, though: I was scared to read it, in case I was disappointed and it no longer had that magic. It took me a couple of years before I finally took it from the bookshelf and reread it. And the magic was still there. I still wanted to hug both Mandy the character and Mandy the book.
Incidentally, when I first loved Mandy I didn’t realise that the Julie Edwards who wrote it was also Julie Andrews who I adored in movies such as Mary Poppins and The Sound of Music. What a clever lady to have managed both a phenomenally successful acting career and to create beautiful children’s books.
I still kind of wish that I’d written Mandy but now what I hope and wish more is that one or more of my books might be making other kids feel the same way I did when I read that one. I hope there’s a reader somewhere hugging one of my books, or wanting to hug my characters, or a writer somewhere wishing that they had written Pearl Verses the World or Roses are Blue, and starting on the path to one day being a published author.
Thank you Mandy, and Julie Edwards, for inspiring me then and now.
I’m Back!
Roses are Blue Blog Tour Wrap-Up
Wow! What an eight days! I’ve been all around the blogosphere chatting about Roses are Blue, reading lovely reviews, being quizzed and generally having fun. Today is the last official day of the tour, and time for me to reflect on the week.
The tour started last Tuesday, when Karen Tyrell’s reviewed Roses on her blog, describing the book as:
“…a heart-warming story dealing with grief, tragedy, and change.”
She is also offering the chance to win a free copy. All you have to do is read the blog post and comment – but you’d best be quick, because this closes on July 31.
On Wednesday the tour moved on to the Alphabet Soup blog, where Roses are Blue was reviewed by a talented 8 year old reviewer, Matilda. She said:
“I would recommend Roses are Blue to my friends because it’s a change from the other sorts of books we read and it could be a true story.”
There is also a give away of a copy of the book on this site. the instructions on how to enter are nice and clear, and you get to check out Rebecca and my other blog, Poetry Tag and see the fun we have playing with words.
Day three I was off to the Kids Book review site, where there was another lovely review, by Tania McCartney who said:
“The depth of her characters, the emotional responses and fears, the gentle hope, is heart-wrenching in all manner of ways.”
I was also there to chat about poetry in all its forms, with a post titled Poetry is Perfect. I managed to limit myself to just eight reasons that poetry is perfect for children – though I could have gone on for days.
Day four arrived and I was up bright and early to chat with Dale Harcombe about Roses are Blue, which she described as:
” a gem of a book”.
She also asked me about some of the aspects no one else has asked me yet – including the naming of Amber and her friend, who all have names that are colours. You can read what I had to say here.
The weekend was here, but no rest for me – though of course one of the great things about a Blog Tour is that you don’t leave home to do it. SO, while I sat in my pyjamas at home I was also being grilled by the DivaBookNerd about all manner of things including my inspirations, diversity, and work-life balance (hah!). You can read the interview here. While there, I was delighted
to find Roses had also been reviewed on the site a few days earlier.
Day six (Sunday) I dropped in to see the lovely Megan at Children’s Books Daily, She asked me ten questions as part of her Book People feature. I talked about my workspace, my routines (double hah!), favourite books and more. (You can see Megan and I together, on the left, at the launch of Roses in Canberra earlier this year).
Day seven brought tears to my eyes as I read Dimity Powell’s review at the Boomerang Books Blog, where she said:
“Murphy is simply master at massaging sensitive issues into refined, understated yet terrifically moving poetic verse. Her words whisper across the pages with the soft intensity of a mountain breeze.”
Wow. Apparently I’d made Dimity cry, too, so we had tears together, across the miles. Dimity also interviewed me, and got to choose a new name for myself: Aquamarine! If you want to find out more, you’ll have to read the interview.
Yesterday was my final stop but one, and I was delighted to visit the new Australian Children’s Site, where Di Bates wrote a lovely review, saying Roses is:
“…sure to tug at heartstrings.”
I also dropped in to Di’s own blog where I spoke about why and how I write verse novels.
Whew! And so we come to today, where we are here, wrapping up the week (and a bit) that was, and saying thank you to the awesome ladies who hosted me, and/or my book, and to all the readers who stopped by and read the posts. Part of the purpose for a blog tour is to promote the book – but, to me, it’s also something much more important: a celebration!
S0 thank you for celebrating with me!
Celebrating with my lovely friends Sue and Claire at the launch.