Or any of the RainbowStreet Animal Shelter series:

Our friends at grammarly.com have sent a helpful list of things to watch for when editing - whether it's your NaNoWriMo novel or anything else. However I've held back on sharing till the end of the month, because I think it's essential that while you're in that first draft and actively creating, you must NOT worry about spelling, commas, or anything else that blocks your flow.

The important thing in your first draft is just to keep writing. Even if you realise you've just used a stereotypical description - 'red as a beet', etc – unless you can come up with a better one immediately, just leave it there for now. If you're truly worried that you won't notice how bad it is, use an asterisk or footnote e.g. 'red as something unusual that fits into the store: ruby? traffic light? fresh blood?'

Then move on. No matter how beautiful a sentence seems as you write it in that first draft - it's highly unlikely that it'll remain in that form in the finished book. So relax, write, and when your story is done and needs tidying and editing, be absolutely rigorous about these five tips.

Good luck to everyone doing not just NaNoWriMo, but taking that brave step of leaping into any new writing!

Today, Harry the Rescue Dog is interviewing Champ for his Rainbow Street blog post - with special thanks to Fiona Ingram for translating, and for including Champ's poem as well!

It's impossible to overemphasise the importance of literacy, so I'm sharing this infographic from Grammarly  https://www.grammarly.com/plagiarism-checker (More than just cute quotes on Facebook!)

I did have one query, as I thought the infographic showed Australia as having a 12% illiteracy rate, whereas it seems to be between 1 & 3% (depending on which site I referenced). However, what it depicts "is that 12% of all illiterate population leave in East Asia and the Pacific region." Australia is of course part of that region - so it's a good reminder that there is a lot of work still to be done to improve literacy quite close to home, no matter where you live. And if you live in Australia, there's one section of the population that especially struggles with literacy - so although there are many charities and organisations around the world working to improve literacy, I'm just going to mention The Indigenous Literacy Foundation. 

As well as donating directly to them, if you're a Nim's Island fan or teacher, don't forget that if you buy the ebook Nim's Island: Excellent Stuff to Make, Cook, Read and Do100% of the proceeds goes to the ILF. 

And meanwhile, think about how lucky we all are to simply be able to read this!

Hollyburn School, Vancouver, using Nim as an environmental hero, 2008

With illustrator Geoff Kelly, photo by Coral Vass

With author Emma Homes

for the whole list and more pictures of the great evening, hosted by the lovely Leesa Lambert, with an inspiring keynote speech by Morris Gleitzman. And a special thanks to Coral Vass for allowing me to use her photographs.

Meeting Rescue on Nim's Island illustrator Geoff Kelly for the first time, photo by Coral Vass

What happened here?

Questions & answers for writing Raven's Mountain (Facing the Mountain)

As a little gift for the Year of the Goat, I'm posting the first chapter of Across the Dark Sea, which begins with the first day of Tet, the Vietnamese New Year. If you prefer, you can download it from my website:


The book has lovely illustrations by Donna Rawlins, but you'll have to imagine that for this excerpt!

Abigail Breslin as Nim

                             
   

Nearly six years ago, as I was writing the second book in the Rainbow Street Animal Shelter Series, (which became the book Rainbow Street Pets in Australia) Harry came into our lives.

Harry is a poodle cross (a poodle enigma, since no one knows what the other bit is). We adopted him from the Lort Smith Animal Hospital, and I've been grateful to them ever since. So you can imagine how thrilled I was to have the chance to join in their fundraiser at Elgee Park Vineyard  to raise money for their emergency care program. Finally, the Rainbow Street stories were repaying their debt to this wonderful animal hospital and shelter.

Unlike my fictitious Rainbow Street shelter, which is run in an old house by Mona and Juan, as well as some child volunteers, the  Lort Smith is a huge building and organisation. The similarity between them comes from the love and respect shown to the animals they care for. Animals who don't find a home quickly aren't euthanised - they're put in foster homes until the right home appears for them.

Of course, by caring for pets, they are also caring for people. We heard very moving stories of the pets who were taken into emergency care - at times including extensive medical treatment - when their owners were hospitalised or in emergency shelters themselves. Sometimes it was for months. Can you imagine what it must have meant to those owners, as well as to the animals, to be safely reunited when they were able to be in their own home again? It's certainly much pleasanter than imagining what it would be like to be released from hospital knowing that your pets had been euthanised because you couldn't afford a kennel. Or imagining the despair that leads a mother and child fleeing domestic violence, to live in their car because the refuge doesn't allow dogs – but once the dog was safely with the Lort Smith, the family was able to go to their own refuge, and eventually be reunited with their pet.


And in case you think Harry still looks as worried as the day we got him, I couldn't resist adding a couple more of him now.
Because animal shelter adventures should have happy endings.

PS. Although Harry didn't get his own story, he has quite a lot to do with the poodle at the very end of Buster's story.)

Bindi Irwin as Nim, from Return to Nim's Island movie poster

Kerry Millard's interpretation of Nim

Wendy Orr, Abigail Breslin, Kerry Millard

Abigail Breslin as Nim

Bindi Irwin, Wendy Orr

Geoff's Kelly interpretation of Nim

The saddest story I've ever heard about the importance of reading to your children came from someone who told me that the happiest times of her childhood were when her mother was in hospital, because she would be sent to stay with neighbours - and the neighbours read her bedtime stories. She has remained grateful to those neighbours for introducing her to books being read at home, the power of a shared story, the comfort of being read to, the establishment of a bedtime routine - or maybe all of the above. She went on to become a teacher, specialising in reading.

So if you don't have children to read to, remember that you can still share it with other children (even if they have parents who read to them!) You never know how that book, or that warm feeling of being read to, may go on to influence a child's life.

And if you'd like me to read to your child, or children you know, let me know by commenting on this post, tweeting or emailing me directly through my website. Today is the last day to enter, but tomorrow, for National Reading Hour, (6 pm Tuesday 19 August) I'll be reading to a child or group of children. It'll be over Skype or even phone if you don't happen to live nearly next door, but that's still a great way to share the love of books around the world.

Miriam at Create Hope Inspire blog interviewed me about Rescue on Nim's Island this week.

 Her two young sons also had some great questions! Here are a couple:

I've been a bad, slow, blogger lately (even more than usual!) but my excuse, apart from having a wonderful four weeks of travel, inspiration and, yes, even a holiday – is that I was copyediting, rereading, proofing and driving my editors crazy with last minute fiddling around with commas and words in Rescue on Nim's Island, right up to the time I left.

A month later, when I got home, my advance copies were waiting for me. Some have already been mailed to the winners of the Name the Character competition. But most of the books are on their way to bookstores now, for release at the end of the month, and so I'll be doing some running around to share them.

So here's a list of some of the events I'm doing in the next few weeks. (Though just if you were wondering, the NSW Writers' Centre Festival and CYA conference weren't organised around my book's release - just a very happy coincidence for me.)

Inspiration, story ideas - they're all around us, in everything that we see and hear, think and do, every day of our lives. But sometimes a particular story needs more specific inspiration, as well as hard research, and that's one of the reasons I'm travelling in France now. In the ancient towns of Marseilles, Avignon, Nimes, etc, I've found details that add to the world I'm creating and have  imagined myself into the atmosphere of those very different times. But true inspiration usually comes accidentally, and that's how it's been this time. The day that we decided we needed a break from history and ruins, and headed off to tour a cave outside Avignon, was the magical day for me.

Arriving at the caves at 12:00, just as they shut for two hours, we decided to head to the nearest village for lunch. Isle de Sorgue was perfect, charming and historic, exactly what you might imagine for a holiday in Provence. The sun was shining and suddenly the thought of returning to tour a cave with the six classes of kindergartners who'd been picnicking at the entrance, seemed less appealing. We continued on to Saumonne, a village and chateau built of rock, often into the side of the cliff. It was the key I'd been looking for; I felt almost weak with relief. I would have been happy enough to have simply headed home then, but La Fontaine de Sorgue was nearby, so we headed there. We visited the church, first founded in ( I think) the 5th century, rebuilt in 12th or 13th, and still used as the parish church now. Of all the magnificent cathedrals and basilica we've visited, we found this the most moving and spiritual.

Then, passing the myriad ice cream and souvenir stalls lining the walkway, we walked up to La Fontaine, the source. There was a barrier at the end, with a sign saying extreme danger but not actually forbidding you to climb over it, as quite a few people were doing, so we did. A short scramble later, we came to one of the most magical places I have ever seen. Clear, deep blue water  welled up from underground chasms deep under the white cliffs. It didn't take much imagination to  guess that it must have been a sacred place from the time people first saw it, or to imagine what it must feel like on days that weren't bright with spring sunshine. And to womder at the stories it must have seen...

So often story ideas can come from the smallest things in daily life, the emotions we all know, and no story is complete without those factors. But sometimes there's magic too, the catch of the breath that marks the sudden gift of inspiration.

At this point I was going to add some glorious pictures, but unfortunately can't seem to do it from my iPad. I will post some on my facebook page: Wendy Orr Author, if you want to see.

"After moving unwillingly across the country, Raven and her sister go mountain climbing with their stepdad. Raven is so excited to be the first one to reach the peak that she does a victory dance, causing an avalanche that sends her sliding and traps her sister and stepdad. Hurt, lost, and alone, she must find a way down the mountain. Orr keeps the tension up through first-person narration that allows readers to feel pressure right along with Raven. Because most of the plot involves Raven climbing independently, this is an introspective novel focusing on her ability to overcome this hardship. She is forced into leadership as she moves from self-pity to action. It is refreshing to see a nature adventure with a female protagonist in a genre often flooded with male characters. … "�Carrie Shaurette, Dwight-Englewood School, Englewood, NJ