No one can prepare you for the actual act. It’s no act though, it’s real and believe me it’s tough. No one can describe how the uncertainty of not knowing where you are going can fry your insides.  There are lots of suggestions on how to kick start a new life. But when you come to doing it it’s a bit like jumping off a cliff or to use a more modern euphanism,  launching yourself into space.

I had plenty of time. We’d done it before-  twenty five years ago.  Memories weren’t of babies and toddlers, more of the teenage years, weddings and grandchildren.  A full on time.  Running a livestock transport business and starting my writing career.  There, that was all. Lots of paper trail for those two.

But there was more.  There is a lot of history you uncover.  So many things you’ve forgotten. My parents story, Ric’s parents, our grandparents.  Last night I watched the film about  the Whaler with my heart in my mouth.  My grandfather was there in Egypt, in the Light horse.  Did you know they wore emu plumes on their hats? That broke me up, I can tell you.

So you run through times that were important to you, you pick up a book or a picture and just think about it, hold the memory close.

I ran out of time.

‘What will I do with this?’ turned into ‘Quick another box and I’ll decide later’.  The result – an awful lot of boxes.

An author who can relate to a lot of this is Jenn McLeod, whose new book,  ‘Season of Shadow & Light’ was released in April.  Jenn has experienced the angst of moving out recently.  She has answered my few questions on gardening and writing.  Thank you Jenn. 

Hi Jane, nice to be here talking gardens. I am kind of missing mine. A while ago I sold up and hit the road in a caravan. Now I’m looking forward to discovering the magnificent flora across this very beautiful land of ours and working things like boabs (fantastic trees) and wildflowers into my stories.

1 What do you like starting with – a seed, a seedling or an advanced mature tree?

Definitely a seed. My stories start out as seeds—ideas that start small and grow, often surprising me. To watch something take shape—a plant or a story—is very rewarding.

2. When you create a path is it a mystery tour, or a definite plan to get from A to B?

I once tried to create a magical, mystical garden with little treasures hidden among the plants and trees. I failed! Weeds took over and the place looked very unloved. It is very difficult to keep a garden AND write! When I plot a story, however, I love not knowing where I’m headed, so no planned path for me.

3. When it’s time to prune do you get out the secateurs or the chain saw?

Ha! Another book analogy, I’m afraid. As with edits, some greenery requires delicate snips here and there, while others require the chain saw approach.

Jenn sent me this picture. Only you Jenn could attack with a chain saw and end up with a love heart…………..

4. How easy is it for you to let people loose in your garden to weed and plant – even to dig holes where you tell them?

Go crazy, I say! No permission required. If you want me, I’ll be at my desk!

5. Can you layer?

???

6 Would you rather put a plant in a pot, or in the garden, or out in the paddock?

Depends on the plant. I Love letting pumpkin run rampant and tiptoeing through the vine to discover new pumpkins. Never had much luck growing anything in a pot. Too constrained. We all benefit from space and that’s why I love the country.

7. What stage would you say your newest work is at – in gardening terms?

Oh, well, Book three (Season of Shadow and Light) is out April 1, so it has been at the delicate secateurs stage of edits. Book four is a seedling. The idea has sprouted and the plot is starting to take shape.

8. Do you have a favourite, flower, leaf or tree?

Too many to mention. I love autumn leaves (as long as I don’t have to rake them) but I have a soft spot for dandelion. Some call it a weed! It’s not. To me it’s childhood. I even called my old house in House for all Seasons The Dandelion House in honour of the fragile gossamer ball I used to make wishes on as a child.

For more information about my stories www.jennjmcleod.com

Thank you so much Jenn, for joining us today.

Thank you, Jane. Always lovely to catch up with you and hubby at conference.

Funny how a word grabs you. I think the need to possess is a gene. It’s such a strong character trait. ‘Own, have, hold’, I have to tell my Thesaurus that these words do not describe the desire for control and power that goes hand in hand with possession. Wanting possession, and once you’ve got it, never letting go. How you will fight and behave in ways you would never have imagined to ‘ keep’ possession.

Take, seize and control do not fully describe the deep seated need, way down inside of you, or indicate the lengths you will go to retain what you own. To care for it, keep it safe.

We have this need to possess in relation to cars, homes , animals and jewellery. Big things , little things and sentimental things. And people. I have it for a wardrobe. The wardrobe sits in the spare room with no clothes in it anymore. Actually when I just looked there are a few dresses there I’d forgotten all about. It belonged to my grandfather. I always had it in my room growing up. It is my wardrobe. Despite the fact I do not use it anymore I cannot give it away.

Why? I am asked.

“I do not know.”

I knew a child once whose first word was ‘mine’. And you should have seen me that day a woman sidled up to my husband with stars in her eyes. She would have been instantly aware my eyes were flashing ‘mine’, also.

Sheep can be possessive. Frisco pushes the others away to stand and let me scratch his nose the way he likes. He will block the exit for as long as he likes, but he doesn’t put up with anyone else getting the scratch, not at all.

I know people who give away everything. They have no need at all to possess. I do not understand them.

“Why? ”I ask.

“I do not know” is their answer.

So it must be a gene. Something we are born with, something beyond our control. Some of us get a double dose. This makes for a wonderful character arc in a story. A real motivation for why they did what they did. It’s been used a lot, obviously.

Today I can shout out ‘my turn’. Aus Rom Today, a wonderful website promoting Aussie Romance authors is mine today. When they decided to promote Aussie authors in January 2015 they got three times the number of authors clamouring to be included than they expected, so they’ve been putting up three a day all this month. And it’s my turn today.

I guess you’re wondering about the ad I posted yesterday for anAustralian Rural Romance.

Rural romance is a total phenomenon.

Writers want to write it, publishers want to publish it and readers want to read it.

A win-win situation. Why?

The Western s have been huge in America, for many years. So we ask the question are Rural romance our version of the American Western? I don’t think so. They were dedicated to showing the spirit, the struggle and the demise of the new frontier and the American Westerns were restricted to the time frame of 1860 to 1900. Remember those wonderful humourous movies like Bob Hope’s Son of Paleface, and Robert Redford and Paul Newman in the fabulous Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid. Sadly, since the 1960s they have dropped off in popularity, in both fiction and at the movies.

Australian Rural Romances embody the same spirit, independent and strong characters, but they are set mostly in a present time frame, with some of them including references to our history. So our ‘Baddies’ are not the crooks of the last century but more the frustrations and problems of the modern world. Not that we are setting up Australian country life as the antidote to problems of modern day city living, but I think more as a setting in which we can identify these problems more easily.

We are among the most urban countries on earth. The percentage of our population that lives in our cities is now more than 82%. So I suppose we now attract a curiosity, as less and less people relate to life in the country or have an uncle or a grandmother or a cousin living here, like they used to.

Rules, god love them, are running all our lives but in Australia, particularly in the country, we are still making the impossible possible. Our laconic, strong countrymen and women can pit their strength and use their wits and imagination to win. Like they used to, in the beginning, when a few convicts and men and women wanting to own and farm land, set about building a nation. They achieved the impossible. It is not too difficult to imagine the passion that drove them, still exists.

An Australian Rural Romance is a website devoted to promoting Australian Rural Romance. I recommend you have a look at it. This month, in ausRomToday they are promoting Aussie author month, three Aussie authors a day are being interviewed and I will be on it soon. I will let you know when.

Have a great year in 2015.

Last December Momentum Books asked me if they could publish my book ‘High Country Secrets’ as an e book

and I said Yes

They asked if they could whisk it away for an edit and I said Yes

They showed me this brilliant cover and asked me if I liked it and I said Yes

One month ago they asked if they could do a print version – and I said YES

So today ‘High Country Secrets’ is being released as a hard copy available through Amazon.com and Book Depository for $24.99.

So you all can say YES, too.

(Don’t you love that ad)

All you history buffs….all you people who thought you’d like to write something historical.

Have you ever considered Goulburn? It is a city with a wonderful history and some beautiful buildings. The Old Police Station sits close by the Goulburn Court House. The court house was built in 1887 and inside I bet you, all is the same as it was one hundred and thirty years ago. Opposite the Judge’s chambers is the room for Associates and Tipstaffs, although I doubt our legal system has changed all that much in those intervening years either. But I can promise you more…

There’s a tunnel that runs underground from the old police station to the middle of the court room, in fact it comes up right in the dock where the accused sits.

And the tunnel has a very creepy feel to it.

Actually, the court House has it’s own ghost, or so I’m told. The judge’s chambers’ has an exit into a walled garden. A quick get away or a peaceful smoke, take your choice.

Across town is the old Kenmore Hospital. A once state of the art mental asylum built in 1890, it is riddled with stories of despair and abuse. There’s a bear pit at the back of the head doctor’s living quarters. Yes, a bear pit. At the same time there is a peaceful calm surrounding it. Because it embodied the philosophy that mentally ill people were to be cared for, while given the job of supporting themselves, growing food, washing and making clothes, at a time when life was pretty hard for most people. They also gave back to the community of Goulburn. The patients built and tendered a beautiful cricket ground and sporting fields and a hall that entertained citizens with many musical comedies over the years.

I find the two court buildings down by the river, one for men and one for women, the most tragic. This was where the patient came to be judged wether to be freed and returned to society, or not. The family would attend and the decision made.

Then there are two amazing cathedrals. The history attached to these buildings is incredible. Count Rossi locking himself in St. Saviour’s Cathedral – and the Bishop out. You’ll have to research yourself to find out why. Let me just say that church politics have always been intense.

Bushrangers abound and we have the pioneers and the wonderful women who went before us. Caroline Chisolm brought her wagon loads of girls through Goulburn and on to the farms and jobs she’d organised for them and the stories of our wonderful nuns will make you very proud.

And abuse, you’ll find it too. But it’s not the whole story.

So come to Goulburn and research your next historical novel. Sit down at Roses Café and enjoy a good coffee and drink in the atmosphere. It’s all here.

Today I welcome Kate Belle , author of ‘Being Jade’ and ‘The Yearning’ to my website to talk writing and gardening with me.  All I ask of a book is that it takes me between it’s covers and makes me cry a little, laugh a little and think a little, but mostly it whisks me away to someplace else. I think you’ll find both Kate’s books will do this for you. I loved them.  Kate is a Melbourne author whom I met at the RWA conference this year.

Hi Kate,

Hi Jane, wasn’t the conference a blast this year! I came home on a huge high. And as one of the co-conveners of next year’s conference in Melbourne, really inspired to create an event that equals it. Thanks for having me over today!

1 What do you like starting with a seed, a seedling or an advanced mature tree?

I have great admiration for gardeners who start with seeds. That’s true dedication to the art of gardening I think. Sadly I don’t have the patience– unless they’re big easily planted seeds like corn, beans or zucchini.

I tend to leave things in the ground for awhile, to see if they have what it takes to survive, before I give them the nurturing they need to thrive. It’s the same with writing, I prefer to put my energy into something already viable. I don’t have enough time in my day for weak plants or ideas that need lots of time and effort and may not survive in the long term.

And I find it so satisfying at the end, to stand back with a beer in hand admiring a flourishing vegetable garden rich with produce. Or a manuscript layered with deeply real characters and complex plot lines.

2. When you create a path is it a mystery tour, or a definite plan to get from A to B?

A satisfying path incorporates a little of both, don’t you think? Like a book, a garden path needs to be entertaining, beautiful, take a few unexpected turns, but in the end it has to take you somewhere and not end nowhere. A garden path (or a book) that ends suddenly, that gives you nothing for the journey you’ve just taken, is just plain disappointing.

3. When it’s time to prune do you get out the secateurs or the chain saw?

I don’t think my over protective partner would let me near his chainsaw, mores the pity!

There is a dangerous lure to chainsaws I find appealing. I put them in the same category as motorbikes – big, noisy, slightly risky but exciting. As with my writing, my garden pruning is usually of the secateurs variety, although when necessary, I’ll break out the big machine and chop chunks off things to let more light in.

In Being Jade I had the unenviable task of chain-sawing out an entire point of view – all 30,000 words of it. It takes a special kind of bravado to do that. But the book is vastly better for it.

4. How easy is it for you to let people loose in your garden to weed and plant – even to dig holes where you tell them?

Like writing a new book, maintaining a garden alone is a big job. It’s easy to become fond of a plant that has outlived its place and as its creator of the garden you can be reluctant to remove it. It’s important to share the load both in the garden and in writing. It’s important to find other gardeners you trust, who can help you identify the parts of the garden that need renovation and even give you some ideas for improvement you might not have otherwise thought of. Gardens and books are always better for the contributions of other like minded souls.

5. Can you layer?

Is there any other way? A one or two dimensional garden, like those neat square patches of lawn bordered by daisies, might be practical and functional but they are so very dull. They don’t inspire anyone to dream. They don’t provide sustenance or pleasure (unless you are a neat freak). Gardens like those barely warrant a second glance. Layered gardens (and books) are truly enriching and we can discover something new every time we enter them

6 Would you rather put a plant in a pot, or in the garden, or out in the paddock?

Plants in pots are lovely to look at but they are high maintenance. They need help to live because they exist outside of their natural environment.

I’m all for plants in paddocks, but given I live an urban environment (albeit a leafy one) they are too far away for me to look at and enjoy.

A plant in the garden, however, has the freedom to grow into itself. It doesn’t require constant attention to survive, but can be enjoyed from a window or decking or a chair set under the shade of a tree. It doesn’t require constant attention, is close enough to be enjoyed, and is able to be what it is meant to be.

7. What stage would you say your newest work is at – in gardening terms?

Seedlings everywhere. I have about four of them at the moment, in various stages of health and growth. I’m having trouble deciding which one to put my energies into.

Most of my time is being spent on writing the first book in my erotic romance series, Master of Love, featuring the charismatic and masterful lover, Ramon Mendez. Ramon hit the digital platforms last year in the form of two novellas, but I got the rights to him back this year and now I’m redeveloping his story from beginning to his happy ever after ending. With some intensive fertilising and watering over the next few months I hope he will be a strong, fully grown, flowering tree by the end of this year.

8. Do you have a favourite, flower, leaf or tree?

I don’t consider myself a romantic, but I do love roses. The must be scented though. And big. And dramatic. No ordinary little bush rose for me, oh no! I want an eye catching rose with a mouth watering scent. The kind of rose you can’t walk past without sticking your nose in the centre and breathing its essence deep into your lungs. The kind of rose that leaves you feeling wistful and sad when its petals shrivel and fall away.

Thank you so much Kate for joining us today. That rose reminds me of the Peace rose that my mother loved so much.

Thanks, Jane, it’s been great fun. And reminded me I must get out and clear the winter weeds from my poor vegie patch and get planting for a summer crop!

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