Christine Bongers's Blog, page 19

And when the girls went "awwww"

I know. A pet lamb the size of a dugong, with its own collar. What's not to love?

But the rapture of those grade eight girls at Stuartholme today still caught me by surprise.

Who could have guessed those old seventies photos would be such a hit?

Author talks are still a novelty for me.

Dust has only been out for eight months and this is the first time I've pulled out the paisley.

I'd swear that this little number on the right (made by Mum for the Biloela Show in May 1972), was one of the new...

Literary crushes, rock stars and me

Quick gush here…

Last night I was at Melina Marchetta's Brisbane launch of her latest novel The Piper's Son.

Melina is such a rock star; her launch at Riverbend Books would have needed bouncers but for the good behaviour of the crowd. Hearing her in conversation with CBCA National President, Marj Kirkland, was an absolute treat.

My autographed copy has been burning a hole in my pocket ever since, but I'm not allowed to open it until I've finished Chapter Two of my new YA w-i-p, Intruder.

I can't ...

Just so you know…

I've had the grumps all week.

Tomorrow's my birthday.

These statements may, or may not, be connected. But when one is off the grog for FebFast and one's nose is scabrous (albeit now sunspot-free thanks to an acid-wielding dermatologist), clinging to one's forties doesn't seem like such a great thing to celebrate.

I despise whiners, especially when it's me, so as soon as my husband and kids were out the door this morning, I decided to make some changes.

I washed and blow-dried my hair, put on a...

My writing nook – QWC blog tour

See this? Proof positive that I'm turning into my mother. Popping on lippy before heading out to the shops. Cleaning up before the visitors arrive.

Half an hour ago, my writing desk was buried under its usual sedimentary layers of bills, paperwork, notebooks, half-drunk cups laced with coffee scuzz, dog poo bags (unused), hair ties, change (glad I found that), and three different types of hand cream.

I now smell damn good thanks to the marshmallow body butter and have transferred all the mess ...

Turning into my mother

See this? Proof positive that I'm turning into my mother. Popping on lippy before heading out to the shops. Cleaning up before the visitors arrive.

Half an hour ago, my writing desk was buried under its usual sedimentary layers of bills, paperwork, notebooks, half-drunk cups laced with coffee scuzz, dog poo bags (unused), hair ties, change (glad I found that), and three different types of hand cream.

I now smell damn good thanks to the marshmallow body butter and have transferred all the mess ...

Psst buddy, can you spare a few hundred words?

'The desire to write grows with writing.' Desiderius Erasmus

Is it a sin to love your blog? Somedays, more than your work-in-progress? Is it weak to fall into the arms of the less demanding taskmaster, the one that never asks more from you than you can give?

A stolen hour. A few hundred words. Just enough to catapult you out of that lonely writer's chair and into cyberspace where the hit-o-metre confirms that someone, somewhere, is reading your words, and that, oh my giddy aunt, they actually...

Happy Australia Day

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Ten things I love about Japan

1. Heated toilet seats – after two weeks in snowy Niseko and near-freezing Tokyo and Kyoto, I discovered my toosh is one of the extremities that goes numb in the cold. I humbly bow to a nation that heats public toilet seats in restaurants, stations, and other haunts of the itinerant.

Niseko

2. The mesmerising dance of snow flakes in Niseko, floating in eddies, locking into crystalline embraces, then disappearing into drifts as light as suds.

3. The hidden night life of the Gion. Fleet-footed...

Perfect endings

'The end of a story is not the point of a story… but you have to get to the end to understand the point of the story.' Veny Armanno, Year-of-the-Novel, QWC 2007

New Year's Eve always feels more like a beginning than an ending. I'm usually running on a full tank after Christmas, eager to hit the road, and discover what's dancing on the shimmering horizon. I have to force myself to slow down, pull over for a minute, ponder where I've been, before plotting a new course. The horizon shimmers in...

Bang-up bush Xmas

I learned to shoot and drive when still in primary school, but now need smelling salts at the thought of my own children accessing the same opportunities.

This Christmas is a big Bongers Fest at my brother's property outside Biloela. A forty-strong gathering of the clan complete with cold room, camper trailors, and you guessed it, guns. 'Slug guns,' my brother clarified after a moment of dead air on the phone line. 'For the kids.'

And his twelve-year-old wants to teach our ten, twelve and...