So... I've got some pretty exciting news! 
But before I get to that, I've got a question for you: What sort of pets did you have when you were little? ​

I had quite a few! Ranging from goats to a blue tongue lizard, a doberman to homing pigeons, a young kangaroo to a guinea pig named Nix. Don't worry, these pets were spread out over the years and locations we lived in. But they've got great memories attached and lately I've been wandering down memory lane quite a lot as I've been on the lookout for ideas, adventures and emotions for a brand new series of stories for children!

Yes, my big news is that despite the discouragements of COVID and the unsettled nature of the year, I've got some new books coming soon. And these ones are a little different from anything else I've written because they're the first set of books I've ever co-written AND independently published  Introducing the Pet Sitters series!

The Pet Sitters books are a series of early chapter books for 6-9 year olds. They're about two best friends who'd love to have pets, but can't so they end up pet sitting a range of other people's pets. The first pet they pet sit is a talking cat named Gus and this grumpy, opinionated and yet thoroughly adorable cat is a huge feature of all the subsequent stories. As the tagline for the series says: ​

This is SUCH a fun series to write! One reason is probably because I haven't been writing it alone. I've been collaborating with friend and fellow Christian children's and middle grade author, Cecily Anne Paterson (you can learn more about her books here). We've planned this series together, laughed at some of the crazy ideas we've come up with and then written the books, chapter a turn. We'll also be independently publishing the books under the joint pen name of Ella Shine (to avoid the difficult and inefficient combination of both our names on the front covers!).

It's been exciting to watch how God has brought together all the different aspects of this project. Illustrator Lisa Flanagan (who has worked on many significant projects including the Christian children's book Mighty Mighty King by Penny Morrison) eagerly signed up to do the artwork for the series. With full colour covers and internal black-line illustrations to accompany each chapter, Lisa's been doing an amazing job! Cecily and I have been thrilled to see how she's brought our characters to life on the pages of these stories so far.

But it's not just text and pictures for these books. The Pet Sitters series will also be available as audiobooks, due to a successful grant from the NSW Government, Create NSW. The stories will be recorded by Australian voice actor, Suzanne Ellis and will be launched simultaneously with the ebooks on December 1. (Print books will follow in the new year.)

​So that's my exciting news. Now back to the question from above: What sort of pets did you have when you were little? (Maybe we'll feature them in one of our Pet Sitter stories!)

Apparently I make pie when I'm sad. Or at least that's what the daughter says.
I'm not so sure.
Sometimes I make pie because I'm in that mood to dig up old memories and let them hold my heart. Sometimes I make pie because I'd like a dessert but have limited ingredients. Pie is probably my preferred dessert (apart from the never fail hot chocolate sauce fudge pudding). But I don't find making pies easy. 
There's a type of anxious inadequacy I face with every pie I make. Will I be able to roll out this crust? Will it burn around the edges again? Will the meringue shrink? Will the middle set or will it come out soggy?
And yet, despite various unpredictable results, I find myself continually returning to the kitchen, choosing a pie dish like it's a mood or a colour, and pulling out another recipe to try. ​

My writing's a bit like that too. Despite multiple published titles, I still sit at my desk with a nagging uncertainty about my craft. I wonder whether I really know what I'm doing. I hesitate over paragraphs and rewrite sentences because I'm just not sure I've got it right. When my books go out into the world I wonder how they'll fare. Will they reach the readers I meant them for? Will they be enjoyed, loved, returned to? Will the words I've put on the page be worthy of being read? 
And then there are the very practical considerations of sales and promotions and school visits and publicity and, well, maybe that's why I like to make pie? It's so much easier than all of this 'author business', especially in the 'current season', when the things we had taken for granted are shoved aside - not so much by imposed restrictions, than the rippling undercurrents in our lives we had been trying to ignore. 

r me, this stripping back of 'everyday normal' means I have to face off with my writing in a new and challenging way. The tougher questions rise to the surface: Who am I when I can't write? When school visits are cancelled and brand new books are launched with limited success? When I can't even put together a simple social media post without spending 45 minutes writing and rewriting it? When the definition of success unfurls in layers I previously hadn't noticed?

However unsettling these questions are, I suspect I need to face them full on. Of course; I don't really have to; I could bluster on-wards, shove them down, argue my way out of their gentle observations. But if I do that, will I grow?
My anxiety about making pies is trivial. I face it because I know, regardless of how burnt or wonky or caved in my pie appears, it will be yummy (even if a bit crunchy).  In a similar manner, my usual writer's self-doubt ensures I give my best to my work to my writing. But these deeper questions uncovered by current times? What do they do?
Well, they expose where my heart is at. They ask me to look into the mirror - the one on the wall and the one that is God's word - and see those parts of me that need addressing. It can be humiliating to look this way. It can be hard, but it's also real. ​

And real is why I write in the first place. Because in writing I find a strange place where emotions and objects and stories and fact tangle themselves together in such a way that I find hope. Writing can be both celebratory and lament, wonder and curiosity, dis-belief and faith. Cut back to the barest minimum by times and questions that pull the certainty out from underneath my writer's life, I am offered a glimpse again at why I love the blank page so much. Without expectations or demands, words are playful, powerful things once more. And I know I don't have to face the difficult questions raised by this time on my own, because I was never left alone - not when things were going smoothly and according to carefully made plans, or when things are unsettled and undone. In times of blue sky or in times of (possibly too much) pie, God's love remains the steady, steadfast, steadying thing.
​And that makes it worth it all. ​

There are stages in an author's life.
Stages of development: are we emerging? Established? Experienced or a newbie? 
Stages of a project: are we idea brewing? Producing that ugly and euphorically charged first draft? Are we sending manuscripts out to publishers? Awaiting their return? Celebrating, commiserating, picking ourselves off the floor and trying once more? 
There are publication stages too: the excitement of acceptance, various editorial stages, the launch stage, the honeymoon stage, the reality stage, the discouragement stage. We pass through confidence and inadequacy like changing socks; daily and with a certain stubborn necessity.
I've been writing and writing for publication for long enough now (it's about 20 years since I first started sending manuscripts off to publishers!) that I know these stages are more important than I first realised. I used to think they were just stepping stones, jumping from one to the other and if I got the order right, I'd be 'successful'. 
I look back now and I don't see it that way. No. As writers, these stages shape us. 
As we move through them and linger in them, jumping from one to the other becomes less important. Instead, the many and various stages offer space to grow  - both as creators and as individuals.  These stages shape our work. They shape our 'brand'. They shape the way we tell the stories we tell. But they also shape who we are. They become the platform from where we stand to speak, literally and metaphorically. 

I have a new book coming out at the end of this month. Published under my general market author name, Penny Jaye. It's about the cost and challenge and joy of welcoming the stranger. It's both a straight up story about a brother struggling with the arrival of a new sibling, and a metaphor about grace. It's about stages, I guess. The stages we can go through as 'the other brother' in our own story, whatever that may be.
I held my very first copy of this book the other day when my author box arrived early. I patted the cover (it is smooth and lovely). I admired once more the beautiful artwork by Heidi Cooper Smith (the end pages are gorgeous). I held all of those strange, mixed up, wonderful new book feelings in my heart and I felt the weight and responsibility of the stages I've been given. But I also felt the joy. 
I've got some grand ideas to launch this book, and some small ones. I'm sending out emails to schools and playgroups, spreading the word about my 'Book Launch Tour'. Essentially, I'm building the stage from which this story can be seen and heard. It's exciting. It's scary. It's humbling in a way I haven't experienced before. Maybe it's this story? Maybe it's where I am as an author after 20 years in the game? Or maybe this too is a stage.
If that be true, may my heart be soft and willing enough to learn all that comes my way. 

The Other Brother is due for release February 28, 2020. 

​It's on days like this - when the thoughts that chase our minds are full of accusations and inadequacies, half truths and smudged glass, when the things that make life rich are also the things that ache and dreams seem like false and sizzled things - yes, it's days like this that the foot of the cross is such a precious thing. 

Here, we don't have to be anything more than who we are. We don't have to pretend, don't have to try harder, fight braver or say the right things to all the right people. We can just be and know that we have never been loved so much as we are right now. And that, is enough. 

Days like this don't last forever, but the love of God - His call, His claim on our lives, there is no removing that. Ever. And so, in moments like this, on days like this, here is where I sit.

The Omega Writers Conference is always a highlight of my year!  
It's a small, but growing, conference aimed at encouraging, supporting and equipping Australasian Christian writers. I've attended it off and on for a number of years now moving from participant to presenter and have enjoyed getting to know Christian writers from all over Australia and New Zealand. 
The conference itself moves around, so although it had been in Sydney for the last two years this year it traveled to Adelaide and was hosted in part by Tabor College.  I was thrilled by this because one of the speakers scheduled was the award winning Rosanne Hawke. 
So I booked my tickets, paid my registration, made some plans to visit a couple of friends along the way and headed to Adelaide!

The conference was wonderful. US writer Alex Marestaing was the keynote speaker and, as we've come to expect of him, delivered engaging and powerful sessions relevant to writers at all stages. 
It was great to be able to spend the weekend talking books, encouraging one another, learning more and taking a break from everyday routines. 

Saturday evening was the CALEB Awards Night. This year, my novel Camp Max was in the running as a finalist in the Children's Literature Category.

When Camp Max was announced as the Overall Grand Prize winner, I was completely overwhelmed. Just think, a little children's novel could win the Grand Prize! I was thrilled, humbled and incredibly thankful. 
I know none of my books would exist without the support of those around me - especially my family and friends who continue to encourage me to keep writing. And this book in particular wouldn't have existed if my publisher, Wombat Books, hadn't believed it would work!

So yes, it was a great conference. And I'm home again now; back to the everyday routine but with the thrum of thankfulness to God wrapped around my heart.