The reason I write is ...

Okay, I'll admit it. Just occasionally I do forget why it is that I write in the first place. On those rare occasions - like when I have a deadline due, or I'm in debate with an editor or a publisher or basically anyone who might not completely agree with me over something to do with my books - it can feel like a job. Then, because it's become a job, you suddenly get cross about all the things that would work properly if this was a real job: getting paid on time, getting paid at all, having someone to talk to over a coffee in the lunchbreak ...

And then there are weekends like last weekend, when I remember with a bolt to my heart why it is that I write. Other than just a burning desire to do it, like many authors I write because I want an audience. Then when you meet your audience face-to-face, and those faces are beaming and bashful and alight with brilliantly intelligent questions, you are truly humbled. How could I be so base as to care about filthy lucre when the Taylors, Katjas, Yanas, and Zoes of the world drag their parents out of bed early on a weekend morning just so that they can come and meet you, and greet you with such awe and gratitude and fantastic new ideas?

Last week it was the Storylines children's lit festival. I was lucky enough to run a workshop on plotting with 17 of Manurewa's most creative children, and between them they came up with a fabulous story - A Sticky Situation - which I'm going to post on my website as soon as I've written it up.

Then on Sunday it was the family day in the Aotea Centre, and that's where all these wonderful girls and boys appeared at my side, so knowledgeable about the contents of my books that they put me to shame, and so thrilled to meet me that I could only disappoint them in the flesh. I hope I didn't. They deserve - indeed, I hope they feel they have - the very best of me.

Love and respect and G-Mamma raps and Bone-type mimes to all those lovely young readers and writers I met last weekend. And this week it's the Taranaki Children's Lit Festival, so here's to the many more I shall meet over the next few days. You're all gorgeous. xx