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Whew.
It's been busy lately.
Day job. A few school visits. A few radio interviews. The final assignments for my course this year. Long days, late nights, no writing.
It feels like ages since I've sat in one spot, even on the ferry, and simply read a book instead of rifling through stacks of paper or scribbling notes.
I have one final exam, and then two weeks of (mostly) writing, although there are a few more schools scheduled, and paid work will no doubt intervene.
I visited a school event this week (hello, Kohimarama) but it was in the evening and the crowd was grown ups. I hadn't realised, and rocked up with eye patch and my usual props to explain that there really were women pirates in history, just like in my books. Instead of nine year-olds there were all these (lovely) parents standing about having a wine tasting.
Uh oh. Time to improvise.
One of the things I love most about school visits is when I look up while I'm reading and see spellbound faces: eyes wide, mouths open.
There were a few parents like that at Kohi the other night. But maybe it was the wine. Cheers.
Now that I'm hawking around a second book, it's interesting to see how kids react to the idea of a series of books - they expect such a thing, now, and lobby very very hard to be given a sneak preview of what might happen in the third book.
I've even been offered bribes. Ten bucks. Hard to resist, I know, but that's a lot of money to a ten year-old, so I had to consider for at least half a second before saying "No way".
A few reviews trickling in now for The Pirate's Revenge, too. I won't bore you with them this time, unless they are fabulous or really vile.
Now I'm about to collapse into a bath (cup of tea in one hand, chocolate in the other) and hope to be more like my normal blogging self next week.