My last post for 2017

Well, I don't know about you guys, but when I think back on the year of 2017, I whisper a quiet little 'wow'. It's been a crazy ride, from having a publisher express interest in my novel, and then offer me a contract, way back in January, to the extensive learning curve of editing, looking at book covers, getting my first box of The Boy in the Hoodie on my doorstep, book launches and signings, and of course trying to get the word out so people will consider keeping a copy of my novel on their bookshelves.

This year, the Christmas break is much anticipated in my household.

(Thanks for the Christmas spirit, http://www.interiordesigninspiration.net/wp-content/uploads/2012/11/Christmas-Decorations-016.jpg)

Christmas, for me, means school holidays, the sadness of saying goodbye to good friends moving on, and taking the time to reflect with gratitude on the year that has been.

I know that's not the case for everyone. Christmas isn't always a time of celebration. Sometimes, it brings back painful memories of loss; thoughts of what never was; or the hurt of broken dreams for the way things were meant to be.

Sometimes, it takes effort to find the great in what you can be grateful for.

Sometimes, it takes effort to step out, to take a risk, and to go and find what it is that you're missing - to try to make it happen.

But if there is one thing I have learned in all I have been through in life, is that sometimes you have to tuck that anxiety down into a little box in the pit of your stomach and step out anyway. Being a good actress helps. Having a safe place to land is essential.

As you look forward into 2018, I pray you will find the strength to step out and move toward grasping what you want most in life.

And don't forget, if you're still thinking of Christmas presents for the young adult/teenager in your world, you could always gift them The Boy in the Hoodie, :), available in all good bookstores now.

May you find the merry in merry Christmas <3

See you all in a couple of weeks!

Photo: I was going to spend Christmas with these awesome guys, my parents, this year. However, circumstances have changed and we don’t get to now. Instead, we’ll spend Christmas with the other kind of family we have - the family we’ve chosen for ourselves, in our amazing friends. I'm really looking forward to hanging out with these friends who we love dearly. I have no idea who took this photo of me with my parents, someone from my family no doubt since we were celebrating Mum and Dad’s 50th wedding anniversary at the time. :) Big celebrations deserve the overlooking of photo-rights, don't you think?

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On the time I lost my friends at High School

Okay, so I said I'd tell you. This won't be easy. Or pretty. But if you've read The Boy in the Hoodie, you'll see where I got the idea for what went down between Kat and Paige in Chapter 8.

I had issues as a teenager, so let's just get that out of the way first. I had terribly low self-esteem and desperately wanted everyone to like me. Clearly, I also had no idea how to go about this. I was soapy-obsessed (Neighbours, Home and Away, and I read this series of books called Sweet Valley High - if you know the series there's no need to say anything more) and I think this was where I learned how you get and treat your friends. You can see this is headed for disaster, now, can't you.

(Photo: This is me on my first day of High School-Year 7. You can now wake up every morning with a sense of gratitude that, for all that may suck about your life, at least you didn't grow up in an age when it was cool to wear socks with sandals.)

Back then, I loved to write and one way I expressed that love was through having multiple "pen pals". I wrote to other teenagers all over the world; yes, with pen and paper, with stamps that needed to be purchased from the Post Office with a little blue AIRMAIL sticker running up the side. In writing these letters to strangers, I could be whoever I told them I was. I could be engaging and funny. And they liked me. Even people who I met on summer holidays would prefer to write to me, than hang out with me while our families holidayed together. In fact, one of my pen pals called me on the phone one Sunday afternoon and I didn't know how to talk to her. She stopped writing to me after that. On paper, I was good at making and keeping friends.

Which was probably why I was so shocked when one of my pen pals wrote to me saying she was writing to too many people and so was cutting back. I was on the exit list. I suppose it's yesteryear's equivalent of being de-friended on Facebook during a cull.

Well, it just so happened that I told my school friends about it, and Ella, our group's 'leader' came over so we could respond to the letter together. And we did; we wrote the letter together. We were nasty. We were rude. We were accusatory. It was full of terrible swear words and described in very unpleasant terms the type of person we thought she was.

To this day, I have no idea why we even wrote it. It was completely unnecessary. She was a lovely girl. And it was really lovely of her to even write to let me know she wouldn't be able to keep corresponding with me.

I have even less of an idea of what on earth I was thinking in posting it to her.

It was a couple of weeks later that my father confronted me in our family's kitchen, holding a photocopy of my letter and a note from the poor girl's parents saying that if there was any further communication from me that they would be involving their lawyer. My parents were horrified. They had barely heard me swear before, let alone knew I was capable of writing such a horrific letter to another human being.

They banned me from having anything more to do with Ella.

When I told Ella what had happened, she couldn't believe I'd posted the letter. She was smarter than me. Much, much smarter.

It was sometime later that Ella asked me if I wanted to go down the street with her, and without even thinking I told her what my parents had said. And that I wouldn't be allowed to go if she was going.

That was the last time I spoke to Ella, or her to me, for a very long time. Our friendship never recovered. And of course, she took all my other friends with her. I was in Year 7 at the time. I didn't socially begin to recover until about Year 10.

I sincerely hope no one else has such a tragic story to tell about losing their friends. But if you do, let me know in the comments and we can sob over it together ... through our keyboards, of course.

Photo: this is me and one of my besties (my daughter tells me only twelvies say besties, and I'm not allowed to use the word) best friends, Jax. This photo warms my heart. Best friends are awesome.

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On my little secret. Shhh, don't tell anyone ...

Okay, so it's time you knew the truth about me. Here it is, I'm going to tell you. I'm just going to spit it out and let the world know what all my primary teachers, and my high school teachers, and my classes in those first few years of teaching down in Victoria knew. It's my literacy-fault. My Achilles' heel. The thorn in my side. It is an undeniable truth:

I am a hopeless speller :'( :'( :'(

Yes, it is true. All other aspects of the English language I have a pretty good grasp on. I've almost been considered a Grammar Nazi before. I can write essays in my sleep. I've been to Uni and have a degree in History and Politics, with a sub-major in English. I also have a post-graduate degree and am halfway through a Masters degree. And of course, I can now add that I am a published author to that mix.

And yet, I cannot spell.

You think I'm exaggerating?

The other day, for my day (paid) job, I was sitting at my desk watching a Dyslexia Daily video, and I learned for the first time how to spell the word Attendance. Before watching this video, I could never remember if it was spelt 'attendence' or 'attendance'. I have had to write the word numerous times since, and I have been able to spell it correctly every time (after I've reminded myself that I want to attend the dance). Here's the video, if it's a word you've always struggled with, too:

The video, and learning to spell a word correctly, is hardly rocket science. But it's really nice to now have engrained in my mind how to spell attendance correctly. Every time I realise I consistently spell a word wrong, and I make myself learn how to spell it correctly, I quietly congratulate myself.

As I write, I whisper to myself my little stories on how to spell words I've stumbled with in the past: The principal is my pal... two cats wear just one sock occasionally.

My 'watching the video' story is less embarrassing than the story I'm about to tell you, of how I learned to spell the word 'sentence' when I was, like, 23 years old. Oh, don't laugh! I TOLD you I can't spell. Here is how I learned to spell the word sentence:

It was my first year of teaching and I had a Year 7 class. For those of you not in Australia, that means the class was full of around 27 fresh and bright-eyed 12-year-olds. I cannot remember the context, but for some reason I wrote the word 'sentance' on the board. Immediately sweet little Lauren put her hand up. "Mrs McKeown," she said, with the innocence of a lamb. 'You've spelt sentence wrong.'

I looked at the board, to where I'd written the word. 'No I haven't, I said.

'Yes, you have,' she said, a little more forcefully. 'There is no 'a' in sentence.'

I laughed a little, trying to maintain composure and not lose the respect of the other 26 students in my English class. 'I'm pretty sure I'm right, Lauren.'

I went on my way, teaching the class. Suddenly, beside me with an open dictionary (it was 1996 and the Internet had barely been invented yet) stood Lauren. She held the Dictionary up to me and pointed at the word 'sentence'.

And that is how I learned to spell the word sentence.

You can see how it is better to learn how to spell words through quirky little videos, rather than through such real-life experiences. But, after that first year of teaching, I made the decision that I would no longer try to hide my inability to spell. Instead, for all my classes, I would make an announcement at the beginning of each year. I would boldly tell my students:

There are two things you need to know about me: One is I cannot spell. The other is I'm hopeless at Math. Fortunately I'm not your Math teacher, but I am your English teacher, but I'm living proof that not being able to spell doesn't have to stop you from being able to do English. Let me know when I spell something wrong; this year, we will all be learning something together.

I still will often say that, though I am a much better speller now that I was back then. I'll still pause and ask a student how to spell a word before I write it on the board. I have continued to learn. I have better learned how I learn to spell. And having a computer is amazing - that little red line (and the add-on Grammarly) make my life easier. I often say that I was born to live in the era of word processors and computers. Needing to spell is not what it used to be. And I seriously thank God for that.

NB: In the writing of this blog, I misspelt Achilles, embarrassing and exaggerating. But I fixed them up. :)

Photo: I hide my face as I make this admission. It is embarrassing for me; it always has been. But I haven't let it stop me. And it HASN'T stopped me yet.

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