‘LIFE”: Catching Up on Mary’s weeks.

Our daughter just rang and said, “you’ve had a hectic few weeks, Mum.” As I told her some of the recent highlights in my life, I realised how little I have shared here with my blog readers the last few weeks, perhaps even months.

“Life” happens to all of us. Some days and weeks roll by smoothly. Some weeks race by in a flurry of busy days until suddenly an appointment that seemed many weeks away is suddenly on the doorstep. I’ve had a few of those “doorstep” moments already this year. It has made me strongly suspect I’ve made a few too many commitments for 2013. Trouble is too often I forget to make time for the unexpected, unplanned events.

Fortunately most of those busy days are physically – if not mentally and emotionally - free of any pain. Last August I had that week in hospital with septicaemia and it took several weeks to regain anywhere near the strength I had before it. This year it has been the turn of my teeth! This last week I’ve been getting used to having four less old teeth and four brand new teeth on a plate that I’m still trying to get used to. Although it all took too much time and disrupted days travelling to dental appointments, this has been and still is a much “happier” and pain free experience than I dared expect or prayed for.

Unfortunately I’m a “one track” minded kind of person and this shows up when I’m trying to do any creative writing. The brain needs to be relatively free of clutter to dwell for long periods in the heads of characters who need their stories told. That means I have to try and exercise far more discipline than I have had lately to make time to daydream, to sit and write than I’ve been able to the last few weeks, even months really. Besides clicking on this keyboard, reading and resting when I have to, I want to savour those delightful, joyful days with my loved and loving family, including with our church family members through their good and bad days too.



The Texans join us.

I spent some busy but “good” days being a tutor for a memoir story telling, six week course of our recently commenced West Tamar University of Third Age. Just after that concluded we enjoyed nearly a fortnight of “good” days with a team from Texas helping our church fellowship reach out to children and adults in our community with the message of Jesus Christ. A wonderful time again with Chris and Heather Horton and their children. This was their fourth visit with us over the last five years and once again so very timely for all that has been happening here. A real blessing of love and grace from our Lord.
Some “bad” days have included losing our dear friend Rhonda Hall last December, our elderly next door neighbour a couple of weeks ago and last week the 37 year old young husband of a church friend. Ray was honoured to take the funeral for both our elderly friend and the young man killed in a car accident.

As I look back over the years, there have been other periods of mind tumbling events that have stopped that creative flow, made me have to simply grit the teeth and force myself to write –whether it be a blog like this or that next chapter in the manuscript. Strange as it may seem, especially to anyone who has never tried to write a novel, there are also heaps of “writer business” that can help clutter the brain. Lately for me it has been waiting for the release of my out of print back list of novels as e-books – especially when they have not gone up on websites for sale on the scheduled time period I’ve been given! There are also the events to try and plan like book-signings and speaking appointments. 

Book Two






Book One



See details of these books on websites like

Amazon or Barnes and Noble ,

Koorong and Word Ausralia

Book Three



Book Four



I am so thrilled that all four historical books in my Great Southland series are now available again as e-books. Tonight is a “catch-up” blog but soon I hope to have more information for you about these books. A video trailer is currently being created about them for readers. Stay tuned!

In the meantime, do be patient with my irregular posting here. And one day in the near future, hopefully even before my trip to the Word Writers conference in Melbourne on August 9th and 10th , I’ll have completed the draft of the full manuscript of Her Outback Cowboy. As long of course as “Life” permits more time.

The Story Behind The Story

This is another very special day in my writing journey. Book One in my Great Southland series is an e-book and available now for download on American websites like Amazon and christianbook.com!

When I wrote Faith in the Great Southland, I never dreamt that one day it would not only be a paperback, included with the next three books in a four-in-one volume Barbour called Australian Outback but also become my first e-book released this very day on American websites.

It makes me look back over 13 years now to that time I first started writing Faith in the Great Southland for the Heartsong Presents inspirational romance book club. It was a few words on a very rare phone call to the Barbour editor in Ohio to even make me consider writing an historical book.

I can’t even remember now why I had to ring him that time in the mid-‘90s – something authors should never really do to busy editors. He had already given me contracts for five contemporary manuscripts with Barbour. What I do remember is for some reason he mentioned he was receiving only one historical to five contemporary manuscripts. This could be a potential problem as two contemporary and two historical Heartsong Present novels were released every month.

Without thinking, I said jokingly something like, “Perhaps I should try writing one” – something that had never entered my mind before. To my utter astonishment I received a letter from him offering me a contract on a proposal. At that particular stage I was writing still for Harlequin Mills and Boon medical romance line and trying to finish my third contemporary book in my Search series. I still think I was wise to refuse that offer and replied,”...I think I would like to see how I go on a new area of writing first. I may take you up on that offer later if it still holds.”

I followed that by mentioning some ideas about setting the historical in South Australia and included, “No convicts were sent to Adelaide...” Well that brought the response that being an Australian historical readers would expect convicts! What I already knew about the early history of South Australia from my two family association published books was not enough. When I eventually was able to start serious preparation for the manuscript, this meant I had to do far more research of the state of convicts here in the mid-nineteenth century. This time period was important because I wanted to include information from my own family’s ancestors who arrived in South Australia in 1938. Convict transportation to the eastern states had already ceased.

While I thoroughly enjoyed writing Faith in the Great Southland, it took me much longer to write than any other manuscript until then. I discovered non-fiction historical books were just too fascinating and needed to discipline myself too many times to stop reading them and write my own novel. Trying to include sufficient, accurate historical background as well as faith elements and romance was also a greater challenge than for my contemporaries. Need I mention the fourth in this series, Great Southland Gold to date has been my last smaller manuscript? I have been told by Truly Yours Digital Edition that my other Great Southland books will also be released as e-books in the next six months or so.

But how I wrote my current Baragula series manuscripts which are twice as long as the ones for Heartsong Presents is another “story behind the story”.

It would be wonderful to hear from anyone who has downloaded this e-book edition.

Of water, peaches, apples – and books

A certain smallish garden bed with some old roses in it has been sadly neglected by myself during this busy summer season. My long-suffering Ray decided his wife needed some help and got out the digging fork. Result? We discovered the water pipe to the house did NOT follow as close to the neighbour’s fence as we thought and was far too close to the surface. Despite Ray’s efforts to repair the relatively small nick in the pipe, it had to be a plumber’s task. The rose bush over it had to be removed. The hole slowly filled with water and so of course the water had to be turned off at the main.

In a relatively small way, the rest of the time until the plumber arrived the next day reminded us what it would be like not to have water on-tap! No bathroom water, no water to drink or wash with unless we wasted more soaking into the ground. Fortunately that morning the last load in the washing machine only had the rinsing cycle to finish. That was easy – just turned the main supply on again until it had finished. I also filled a clean bucket with water, then busied myself scooping out as much water as I could as it oozed into that hole again. Well, that transplanted rose bush did need watering!
Now it is all fixed, I certainly appreciate more than ever the luxury of simply turning on a tap.

It is the last few days here of our official summer. The last of peaches from our tree and our neighbour’s apples have meant several hours making peach chutney and stewing fruit for the freezer. No jam this year as we liked the chutney the most.

I have to confess not liking housework at all – and “not liking” is a mild word for how I feel about it. Cooking is also something I only do because we need to eat! However, now my last saucepan (I hope!) of apples has finished cooking these is a real sense of achievement as I look at all those filled jars and the containers in the freezer.

Each time I go to try and work on my next book, I sure need the “main” supply of ideas open so they can flow unhindered into my imagination and out through these fingers to this keyboard. But sometimes the “ideas” seep into a hole and it is time to switch off, take a break – and write a blog post?

It takes time, many hours of perseverance and simply hard work to write a book. When the flow is hindered of even cut off, I begin feel dry, frustrated. It means I have to work even harder, spend longer hours doing what should take much less time to finish the manuscript.


My last novel for
Heartsong Presents


And all the preparation and cooking of the fruit? Well, that sense of satisfaction at a task completed I am feeling right now is nothing at all as wonderful for me as having that sweated over manuscript be held in my hands in book form at long last. Then of course, as a cook waits to hear her cooking is “okay”, so also does the writer hope to hear from readers that the book is perhaps far better than just an “okay” read!