Gratitude for Millie and Stella (kids lit, middle grade)
The Sunshine Coast Hinterland Writers Festival (my workshop for kids)
Write Your Novel (hybrid course – 2 for 1 deal! Bring a friend free!
The Artist’s Way (creative recovery for all, 12 week course, live)
Sometimes, stories and characters take many drafts and years to come to fruition. They’re like a friend you’ve had for 10 years who finally shows you themself in their ‘natural’ state — dressed in medieval role playing outfits. Other times, though, characters turn up like they opened the door, walked in, sat down and told you their life’s story. Millie is one of those.
Roughly 15 or so years ago, I had a dream in which I was in labour and gave birth. I reached down and picked up a little girl who (in perfect dreamlike fashion), was about the size of doll, with long dark hair. She smiled at me and said, ‘Hi, my name’s Millie’, and I remember it clearly to this day.
Fast forward a couple of years and I was pregnant. Millie! It must be Millie! But my little Millie wasn’t destined to stay. It was early in the pregnancy and I knew something had changed before the bleeding started. I lived in a tiny rural town and as it was still early enough (and, presumably, services were limited) I was sent home by myself to deal with the lengthy, unsupported and agonising passing. Time moved on, I had a baby boy, I got a book deal, I relocated to the coast. When my son, Flynn, was four-years-old, I was already contracted and scheduled to write big, adult fiction books, for years into the future. But I’d had a long-held dream to write children’s books, and I especially wanted to be able to get one out into the world while my son was still small enough to sit in my lap while I read it to him.
I committed to writing a terrible first draft (because you must allow yourself to write a terrible draft if you want to get to the good draft) and I would do it in 20-30 minute stints first thing in the morning. (I adapted practices from The Artist’s Way which I’d completed with a group of creatives 25 years prior.) They weren’t ideal writing conditions, but I had to do it anyway.
The summary is that over the next eight years the story went through multiple upgrades, variations, re-writes and changes in the cracks of time between my big book commitments. Now, to my rather excessive delight, I can share that IT IS FINALLY coming out into the world bigger, better and brighter than I had initially imagined it, and I couldn’t love it more!
Additionally, I can’t tell you how much deep joy it has brought me to ‘see’ my little Millie running around on the page, hanging out with ponies and puppies and chickens and her best friend, Stella, and dancing and drawing and reading and loving cheese and paella with her loving family. I truly feel like she has indeed come through me and now lives very much in these stories, right where she’s meant to be. I hope you love her as much as I do. And I hope you love her best friend, Stella, just as much, because it was actually Stella’s character’s energy that got this series up and off the ground in the first place. And when you meet both Millie and Stella, you’ll understand why. 🙂
P.S. I’ve told my now 12-year-old that he still needs to sit in my lap while I read him this story… Stay tuned for those pics!
Do you ever wonder if your life could be different, or feel like there’s more you still want to experience, but you’re not sure where to start?
Millions of people around the world (including me) have followed Julia Cameron’s ‘spiritual path to higher creativity’ and felt the change. Get the most out of this course by sharing the journey with others, celebrating, laughing, commiserating, and uplifting. As Cameron says in her book, artists rise together.
The Artist’s Way changed my life.
Firstly, let me be clear:
This course is not about:
This course is about:
This course might be right for you if:
(Ech… if this is you, I’m sorry, lovely. These are big feelings and ones that (I know) are difficult to deal with.)
This course might also be for you if:
Trust me – this course is for you. Yes, you! 🙂
Have questions? Want to hear me chatter on about the many ways The Artist’s Way changed my life? Email me. hello@josephinemoon.com
Like most things in life, the best way to get the most out of this course is to join a cohort of fellow recovering creatives who will keep you motivated.
Over three months, The Artist’s Way (the bestselling book written by Julia Cameron) will lay out how to recover your creative birthright – even if you think you can’t do anything even remotely “artistic”. If that’s you, you’re not alone. Many people feel that way. But if you’ve ever watched small children (or puppies or kittens!), you’ll have noticed that one of our first instincts in life is to play. And that’s all that creativity is: play. Sadly, though, must of us have (temporarily) forgotten how to do it. That’s why we need The Artist’s Way.
Twenty years ago, I completed The Artist’s Way to recover my innate creativity. I met with a small group of people every Thursday evening and we shared what we’d done during the week – the struggles, the breakthroughs, and the camaraderie of shared experience. We also brought our posters and other various practical activities to ‘show and share’, which was tremendous fun. We wrote our morning pages and we went on artist’s dates. And during that time, I figured out how to be a writer and live as an artistic being.
Since the day I got a book contract, I’ve been telling anyone and everyone about The Artist’s Way. This is the book that made me a writer. Yet, it’s not a book about writing, it’s a book about creativity and right to have it, use it and enjoy it, whatever your passion or special interest might be, and whether or not it sells, is financially successful, or has an ‘important’ outcome of any kind.
Since then, I have opened the book to revise a section of The Artist’s Way every year that I’ve been writing professionally. It’s just that good.
Finally, I know it’s time for me to go back and do The Artist’s Way again and this time I want to share it with you too.
Yesterday, I was chatting with my coach and our conversation turned (as it often does) to creativity. The maddening thing about creativity, for me, is that the more difficult life gets, the more I need to lean in to my creativity… and yet, my first reaction to stress is usually ‘freeze’… ‘hide’… or, ‘work harder’ (or eat cheese). Why do I find so many ways to self-sabotage myself? My logic tells me one thing but my adrenaline tells me something else. I should certainly know better by now because I do know better.
Let me diverge here for a moment, taking you all the way back to 26th January, 2013. I had a young baby, my first literary agent, and my first two-book deal. We were living ‘out in the sticks’ but had bought a property (a ‘renovator’s delight’) on the Sunshine Coast, and spent an excruciating amount of time on the road between the places, contstantly exhausted. Add in eight months of serious sleep deprivation, eight months of (late-diagnosed ) hyperemesis gravidarum before that… and a whole bunch of other stuff… and things were tough.
And right now? Life is tough, again, for so many reasons. So I went back through my old posts to see if I could find some wisdom, and came across this.
“This weekend, my inner child was horribly disappointed. We’d planned our first party for our eight-month-old baby — a ‘bush welcoming’ under the enormous fig trees on our new property for over forty people. I’d planned a time capsule, face painting, bubbles, rope swings in the trees, a barbecue, play equipment, icy poles and more. My sister had baked cupcakes with wee frog pictures on top and made lanterns for the trees. I’d ordered a helium balloon in the shape of a frog prince.
And then it rained. And rained, and rained and rained. Large parts of Queensland are flooded right now. Our new property (still a virtual construction site while we’re renovating) was running rivers of water and mud. We had to cancel. And I was somewhat heartbroken. Wondering why I was teary, it suddenly struck me that my inner child was heartbroken.
If you follow my writing, you’ll know how much I adore Julia Cameron’s wise words from her internationally bestselling book, The Artist’s Way. And you’ll know that her sage observation of we creative types is that our inner artist is a child, and to get the most out of our inner artist child we need to let her play. ‘Our artist child can best be enticed to work by treating work as play,’ she says (The Artist’s Way). Turning up to ‘work’ has ‘more to do with a child’s love of secret adventure than with ironclad discipline’.
The only compensation for an injured heart is to offer more love and fun.
So hubby and I packed up our lovely bubba man and drove to an even tinier town than ours (Moore) to visit an art show in the local hall with entry by gold donation. We wandered the many aisles marvelling at people’s creativity (the way someone could get so much expression into a tiger’s face, or the many uses of teabag tags), allowing our brains to stretch and grow while bubba man crawled and shuffled on the timber floor and tried to pull down the temporary display stands. Then we had ice cream. All while the rain drummed and drummed on the roof.
My inner artist was mollified. I’d had fun. I’d had a small adventure. I’d seen totally new things and thought of totally new ideas.
It’s what we must do as artists, to always seek a new adventure.”
Back to today, 2024, and I returned home from my coach and spent some time with art. I pulled out an unfinished drawing I’d started and spend some time with it to see what else might like to develop. When writing, this would be called ‘drafting’. Here, though, it’s just ‘play’.
Does this lady have a great role to play in the world? No. But she did her job for today. She reminded me to start with the ‘work’ that fills my well – because we cannot draw from an empty well.
And after saying it for the past twelve years… I am going to, finally, share the life changing work of The Artist’s Way with you. Stay tuned for more details.
Lovely ones, for years and years, you’ve been telling me how much my books make your mouth water and make you hungry and how much you want me to write a recipe book. Well, finally I have put together my first recipe book, and it’s available from today, just in time for Christmas celebrations and gift giving.
What’s in it? My blue ribbon winning strawberry jam recipe, for one. 🙂 These recipes are family friendly, all gluten free by default (but you can substitute your own flour, no problem) and usually dairy free (but you can also substitute your usual replacements). They are highly flexible recipes, made for you to play with. Cooking is creative, after all, so I want my recipes to be inspiring and supporting, as much as they are instructional.
I’ve also included a five-page special event guide on How To Throw A Tuscan Feast. This is a great event for a special occasion, such as Christmas, Easter or (as I did) for a special wedding anniversary. I’ve also included recipes for cakes, cupcakes, icing, cocktails, apple crumble, a hearty chicken dinner, gingerbread and more.
My food stories and recipes are inspired by my bestselling foodie fiction books. For years, I’ve wanted to bring you, my readers, this accessible, family friendly and tested collection of some of my favourite recipes. This is the first volume of recipes, accompanied by behind-the-scenes stories and memories. It’s a great idea for a Christmas gift for a loved one, especially if you can’t catch up in person – you can send this ebook to them, wherever they are.
I hope you love it.
Jo x
Reposted from 18th November, 2015 … but still seems relevant 🙂
Consider this post both a gentle, supportive hug, and also a loving butt kick. I’ve had too many conversations in the past month with beautiful, talented, creative women that go something like this:
Look, to be blunt, none of this is new. All of this has been said before, by me and every other person with a creative wish. As Elizabeth Gilbert says, “your fears are boring”. (Ouch! Hurts just a bit, doesn’t it?)
People get so messed up in their heads thinking about the outcome of their creative project that they fail to even start it.
And in my experience, what happens to your book after it is finished is largely out of your hands. You have very little control over it after it leaves your laptop and flies off into the world.
Maybe it will sell, maybe it won’t. Maybe it will start a revolution across the world, or maybe it will change a single person’s life and help them through a difficult time. Maybe it will make you really rich, or maybe it will pay a phone bill, or maybe you’ll end up in debt.
Like bringing a child into the world, there is only so much you can do to protect, shepherd and guide her where you want her to go. She has her own journey.
Is this poking at your deepest fears? Can you feel your stomach knotting and your breathing constrict?
Here is something terrifying.
That fear never goes away.
I emailed my lovely fairy godmother, Monica McInerney, not long after getting my contract for The Tea Chest and The Chocolate Promise and asked her how to deal with the paralysing fear that was stopping me writing. She laughed (lovingly) and told me it wouldn’t ever go away and she was going through it right then too, on her tenth novel.
Julia Cameron, master of living a creative life (and famed author of The Artist’s Way) confesses in her book, The Creative Life, that as time goes on, the mind’s tricks, which it plays to stop us from writing, only get trickier.
Please, beautiful people with creative dreams, don’t be a slave to the ego’s fear.
You are stronger than that. You are wiser.
Name it, if you like. (My creative monster, my ever present fear, is called Maureen. Julia Cameron’s is called Nigel.) It is like an unwanted relative. You can’t get rid of it. It will always be at the table, eating your food.
Give it a job if you like. Many years ago, I listened to my saboteur tell me that everything I wrote was crap, turned to the corner of the room and said, ‘Really? Thanks for that feedback. Now go do something useful and find me a book contract.’ (Well… I got a contract!)
But please, write.
Please write.
Write.
Write for the sake of writing. Write because you want to. Write because in this hour, this day, that is what your soul calls you do to. Write because you love it. Write because you have something to say.
What happens to it after that?
It’s irrelevant. The important thing is that you wrote.
Much love,
Jo x
Writing retreats are, hands down, one of the most important things you can do as a writer. Having just come back from my twice-yearly writing retreat week, I am bubbling with enthusiasm to share the joy. Why not join me for a weekend of writing at Bribie Island (Qld) this October to find the time and space to go deeper.
Are you writing a novel, memoir, short story or lived experience self-help book?
You’re invited to join a small group of fellow word lovers to spend quality time diving deeper into your project.
Writing retreats take us physically out of our everyday, which translates nicely to transporting our minds to different places too. Writers can and will write under any circumstances, if they are so determined. Yet, in my considerable experience of writing retreats, absolutely nothing comes close to the value of dedicated writing time and (possibly more importantly) mental space for our creative brains to expand and grow.
I’ve balanced this retreat with enough structure to give you guidance but also enough free time for you to follow your heart.
Retreat Structure
The maximum number of spaces for this weekend is 7.
Your Investment: $225pp.
(Accommodation is not included. See below for suggestions.)
The Area
This lovely library is situated on the foreshore of Pumicestone passage (Bongaree) and is an easy, flat, few minutes walk to cafes, coffee, ice cream, and various shops. I recently ate at Annie Lane cafe every day while on retreat and enjoyed coffee and incredible cakes from Scoopy’s, just over the road. I also enjoyed the foreshore walk, which has a wealth of historical photos, information and quotes to inspire a dozen new stories or characters that you might even weave into your own project.
Accommodation
Bribie Island has a wide range of accomodation options available so you are sure to find something to suit your needs.
Bongaree Caravan and Cabins has simple but affordable options that can suit up to 4 people art once, in some cases. They are also just a stone’s throw from the library!
Big4 also has luxury cabins available.
And of course there are the usual online accommodation searches to find plenty of other options (e.g. AirBnB, Wotif, Booking)
I look forward to sharing a weekend of writing with you soon!
Jo
How do you find ideas for stories, and what do you do with them once you have them? How do you write a bestselling novel? This year, I’m delighted to be running two writing workshops in Brisbane in May at Twelfth Night Theatre.
Do you…
I can help!
Workshop 1: Bringing Your Ideas to Life. How do you find ideas for stories and what do you do with them once you find them? Josephine will guide you through the process of discovering ideas for stories, accessing research and resources, breathing life into words, and then pulling them into some sort of order to get them onto the page. She’ll also help you to work out what sort of writer you might be, which will help you know what to do with your ideas. She’ll cover different types of structure to suit different outcomes and foundational skills in the requirements of a good story.
Workshop 2: How to Write a Bestselling Novel. There isn’t one single way to write a bestseller but there are definitely common elements you can learn. Bring your idea for a novel and Josephine will show you how to plot it out to keep the pages turning, build strong characters and guide you through the foundations of self-editing. This interactive day will see you leave with a bounty of information to set you up for success.
You can book in for either event or attend both for a discount. As well, I’ll give everyone who comes along a complimentary copy of The Gift of Life to take home!
Click here for bookings.
Because this workshop is going to be so much fun, I want you to bring a friend for free!
You can pay full price and gift the extra ticket, or share the cost, it’s up to you.
Book now to serve your place and join me for a fun day of sensory delights, chocolate tasting and crafting gourmet words.
Suitable for fiction and non-fiction writers.
Are you writing a novel? Writing memoir? Writing for blogs or social media?
Food connects us all.
Everyone has stories in their memory and in their heart that include food. Days spent in the kitchen with your mother or grandmother making biscuits. Afternoons wandering the apple orchard, picking fruit with your brothers and sisters. Maybe brewing some cheeky cider with your dad in the back shed. The first time you tasted seafood. The warm, hearty stews that kept you going through a difficult winter. The endless lasagnes left on your doorstep after a bereavement. Every day, we eat. Every day, we create more memories.
Perhaps you would like to take some of those memories and get them onto paper. Maybe you would like to channel your passion for food into writing for magazines. Maybe you would like to know how to enhance your fiction writing with the joy of food.
This workshop is for you.
Join with me to discover diverse ways to use food in story. This one-day course gives you a raft of new writing tools to approach food in your writing with more fun, depth and elegance. Bring your pages to life with mouthwatering descriptions and tantalising facts to hook your reader and keep them reading till the very last bite.
To find out more about the workshop, go to my WORKSHOPS page.
Sunday, 5 November, 9am-4pm, Cooroy (Noosa hinterland, Qld)
To book, follow the link here.
I hope to see you soon!
