sallymurphy.com.au

Sally Murphy, Australian author

Five Cool Things About Housework

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Housework. Chores. Jobs. I don’t think I know a single person who likes doing housework. It’s dirty, time consuming – and it seems that as soon as it’s finished, it starts again. But, I have promised myself to find positives in every area of my life, and as I was up to my wrists in dirty dishwater this morning, I started composing the following list. So, here goes – five cool things about housework.
1.       1.  Cleanliness. When the work is done, my house is cleaner. And  much as I don’t like housework, I like dirt and germs even less.
2.       2. Exercise. Bending, stretching, moving. I struggle to fit time into my routine for structured exercise 9even my wii-fit has grown cobwebs the past few months), but I hand out two loads of washing every day, I iron, I sweep, I pick up… I suspect I’m finding my 30 minutes of exercise 9and then some) without even trying.
3.     3.   Less fear of visitors.  When my house is clean, and a car pulls into my driveway, I don’t get that heart-stopping moment of “oh no – what will they THINK”.
4.       4. Think time. When I am doing something repetitive, I find my mind is on anything BUT what I’m doing. It’s a great time to process  story ideas, figure out plot problems, chat to a character. Case in point – this blog post was drafted in my head while I washed the breakfast dishes, so that when I sat down to type it, it just flowed onto the page.
5.       5. Rewards. Leaving the best to last, my favourite thing about housework is that when it’s done – I  can reward myself.  Nothing delights me more than saying (to myself) “Well done, Sally, you’ve done such a lovely job of the housework you deserve a coffee break” (or facebook break, or chocolate break, or TV  break, or whatever is relevant to the time of day). 
Have a great day!

Five Cool Things About Writing for Children

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One of my students at my teaching dayjob asked me recently why I needed a day job if I am a ‘real’ author (as opposed, I guess, to being an unreal one). I explained that , like most authors, I need a day job to supplement my income. She was a bit puzzled by this, and went on to ask why I bother with writing if it doesn’t make me enough money. 
Although I answered her with several reasons, I’ve been thinking about this conversation – and all the wonderful things I love about being an author – and have decided  to kick off a new semi-regular series of posts (semi-regular meaning I’m not sure how often I’ll do it) celebrating the good stuff in my life by talking about the good parts of being an author.
So, here goes – five cool things about being a children’s book author:
1.      1.   Holding a book in your hands with your name on the cover and knowing that you wrote it. You.
2.     2.   Holding that same book and knowing that kids (and maybe adults too) are going to read it – and picturing that happening.
3.     3.  Getting to go into schools, and to festivals, or online venues such as blogs and forums, and talking to kids about your books and the sheer joy of reading and writing.
4.     4.  Getting to do silly things and pretending it’s research for your next book.
5.     5.   Fan mail! Young readers say the nicest things – sometimes through snail mail, sometimes by email, and other times in person. I have had notes scrawled on the back of festival programs, or corners torn from notebooks, which have become prized possessions.
These are not the only five cool things about what I do – and not even necessarily the top five things, but they are the first five things that came to me when I started to write.
I’ll be using the five cool things format again to talk about different topics. Stay tuned! In the meantime, I’d love to hear what YOU think is cool about writing for children.
sallymurphy.com.au