Lili Wilkinson's Blog, page 17

Poetry Friday... no, really!

Those of you who know me will be aware that I'm not an enormous poetry fan. I think it mostly comes from writing too much dreadful stuff as a teen. But I make some exceptions, and one of those is children's poetry. And I thought I'd share a poem by one of my favourite children's poets, E.V. Rieu, who is perhaps better known for his Penguin Classics translations of The Odyssey and the Bible.

The Hippopotamus's Birthday
He has opened all his parcels but the largest and the last;His hopes are at...

Leaping from project to project

I have handed in the first draft of my mystery novel. *chews nails*
It turns out that writing a mystery novel is really hard. Especially as I've never been a big reader of detective or mystery fiction. I had this list of truly excellent clues that I planted at the beginning, and as I crawled to the finish line, I kept thinking I must figure out how those clues fit in. And then I got to the end and realised I hadn't, and had to go back and try and retrofit them. Or delete them.
Anyway, it is...

What's in Your Handbag?

Simmone Howell asks what I have in my handbag, and I respond:
This is actually my standby handbag. My proper one is bigger, but the zip is broken and it is off being fixed.
Contents (clockwise from top left):-Moleskine notebook, for writing thoughts-wallet-One Big Damn Puzzler, which is so far a very entertaining read-glasses case (containing reading glasses)-two pens, one pink for signing, one with a sekrit USB stick in the middle.-smartcard for access to work.-Asproclear-iPhone earbuds (the i...

New face for Scatterheart

This is the new Australian cover for Scatterheart. Isn't it pretty?

No-brain creative

I've just spent a whole week working on my book. It's totally mentally exhausting, so by about 4pm, I still have plenty of energy, but don't want to use my brain. And that's why I love craft. I'm currently 44 squares into a 440 square queen size string quilt. I got the idea from here, and if you're interested there's also a tutorial. It's a very easy pattern to follow, and requires almost no measuring, which is awesome. Here's some in progress pics:
Strips are sewn to a 5" square of phonebook ...

Snails

One of the characters in my WIP is fascinated by insects, and knows all manner of trivia about them. I was telling some of this trivia to my dad today, and he pressed Snail, by Peter Williams into my hand. And I'm sure you don't think a book about snails could ever be interesting, but let me share the first paragraph with you, and we'll see if you change your mind.

So attached was the author Patricia Highsmith to snails that they became her constant travelling companions. Secreted in a large...

JaFeNoWriMo

I have a deadline. It involves finishing my work in progress by the end of February, which basically boils down to 35 words in 35 days. A challenge, but a not insurmountable one. January and February are not particularly busy times of the year for me, at work or socially. Basically, they're no November. So I apologise for the lack of bloggery. I beg forgiveness and offer the first snippet from the work in progress as a teaser. I think I've already put the first line up before, but here's the ...

The kindness of strangers and the mystery of old books

It's lovely when things just come to you, unexpectedly.
I got an email about a month ago from a kindly soul who said she had an old Collins' dictionary that was inscribed to a Lily Wilkinson in 1924, and would I like to have it?
It was her husband's, the kindly soul told me. He used it to learn English when he first came to Australia. It's such a beautiful little dictionary, with lovely little woodcut illustrations.
The inscription says "To Lily, with love and best wishes from E Anderson...

Homemade Christmas

So I didn't do EVERYTHING home made this year, but I still got my crafty oar in.

teacher gloves for a @jellyjellyfish


strip quilt cushion for Michael's mum



patchwork cushion for Erin



coasters for mum and dad

strip quilt cushion for mum and dad

2009

I wasn't going to write this post, after reading everyone else's 2009 wrap-ups, but people convinced me.

A lot of people I care about had a crappy 2009. I didn't.

2009 started well, surrounded by my friends in Philip Island. Then Michael came into my life and made everything just that little bit more awesome. I've never felt so lucky to be surrounded by such wonderful, inspirational, supportive people.

It's also been a bloody good year for writing. I was a guest at the Edinburgh Book Festival an...