Out of Hiding! My Secret Garden and other bon mots...

I have, I suppose, as the title of this blog suggests, been in hiding, more or less. In a quiet place, "doing the verk" as Jen Storer (she of the many facets but best known as children's author and Royal Majesty of The Duckpond, a kindly kidlit Facebook community) continually admonishes. The quiet place I should add, exists largely inside my head, as life itself has been anything but- which is probably why I needed it ! I've spoken before about my creatorium, my own personal creative space that exits in an otherwhere, where something is always bubbling and word wrangling is the only game in town. I've named my blog "The Creatorium" because it's going to be the virtual home of this space, a place to chat and talk about the creative dance in all it's many, varied, rainbow hued, exhilarating, frustrating, infuriating and joyful guises. And that's great. But sometimes I need to retreat to my Secret Garden. It's a place of quiet and stillness, where I can nourish my psyche with art and music and poetry, read and listen to other people's words, learn and wrestle with the Great Mysteries of Life- -and watch Grace and Frankie on Netflix. ...It's hard to blog from that place, you know? You sink in. You get comfy. You even wonder if you'll ever emerge from the Secret Garden again. Then suddenly, you realise it's time. Time for a new website (let me know what you think?) Time to talk about the two new picture books you have coming out in 2020 (and what amazingly exciting journeys to publication they both have been- more on them soon!) It's time to GET ON WITH IT. I'll be re-publishing lots of blogs from the archives as well as sharing some of the great things I discovered and learned. (And I'm still going to make time for Grace and Frankie because you know- it's fantastic and as usual I am WAY late to the party!) So here I am! Nice to be back. Talk to you again soon,