‘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.

IN BED WITH A KINDLE

My husband Ray and I have always had a lot of fun. He also writes great blog posts. Although...hmm...not sure about this one!

Oh, and don't miss the "special" photo of him at the end!










Mary loves to read in bed. That’s okay in daylight. Unfortunately house and other commitments make this rather difficult. So it is a night time feature. That requires a light. But we share the bed. That in turn means the light of her reading lamp to varying degrees casts its glow in my ‘realm’. Add to that the thunderous noise of turning pages and you understand my sleep deprivation.

Our children understood the pressure I was under due to lack of sleep. So their answer – buy mum a ‘Kindle’. They wanted me to enjoy a greater depth of slumber land and produce sweeter, richer tones to my snoring. Now Mary reads in bed with the kindle’s soft light and no crashing sound of turning pages. Bliss? I hoped so but it wasn’t so. Now every–time she touches the screen to turn the page a shadow flits across the ceiling and off the walls. Have you ever tried to sleep when light and shadow perform their weird dancing ritual? It might be silent. It is spooky. I once thought the room was haunted. This was due to a combination of her turning pages, she reads quickly, a storm outside and when she chuckled about something.

Still you can adapt to anything after a while and with cunning strategies. If you can’t beat them, and you can’t join them, confuse them is my suggestion. I now listen to my bedside radio either to the news or soft dreamy music. Then with a mind at ease and eyes unafraid I drift off to sleep. Guess who has to turn off the radio.

You may think this wildly exaggerated. It is! However it does reveal the peril of modern inventions seized upon by addicted writers and readers. Then bosses, managers and governments wonder why we have so many workers arriving half asleep to work and coffee sales soaring.

Still, if I had to be honest, I wish I could sustain reading in bed for more than a paragraph. I’d love to challenge Mary to a Kindle endurance readathon? O well, a man can dream can he not?

Ray (sleep deprived) Hawkins April 2013.

There it is! And we did have fun as he posed for the photo, but somehow I don't think he was quite prepared when the camera flashed as he acted out!

But here is a big, big, thank you my darling for all those nights you did let me read with that bedside lamp on.

And I have to add that of course the book on the photo is my own first Amazon e-book, Faith in the Great Southland.

And just been told Hope in the Great Southland and Love in the Great Southland should be released also by Truly Yours Digital Editions in June.
I can hardly wait.

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.