Writing books - what fun! At least, that's what I thought at the age of five, when I was just starting to realise that books had to be written by somebody. Enid Blyton, Rudyard Kipling and Arthur Ransom were my favourite authors until I was about eleven, and when anyone asked what I wanted to be when I grew up I would say 'I want to be a children's authoress, like Enid Blyton'. I also had a yen to be a ballet dancer, but seeing as my parents wouldn't let me join a class, I read books about ballet instead. The Ballet Annual was my favourite, but anything with pictures of dancers would grab my fancy at the library.

By the time I was eleven, I was getting enough pocket money to pay for one ballet class a week, and when I was fourteen my teacher gave me free lessons in return for helping with the young children's classes on Saturday mornings.  I struggled through my exams,  rarely getting honours, while at school I was winning awards and high grades for writing. I also wrote stories and poems for the Chucklers Weekly - a magazine for kids and teens. They paid me a pound ($2) a time!

Dance-wise, by this time, the 'Balanchine body' was the one ballet companies sought - light build, a long neck, and legs half the total height. Prior to this time, most dance companies and musical shows had room for a few shorter girls to appear in character roles: they even had their own routines in musicals as the 'pony ballet'. Alas, Mr Balanchine's preference prevailed in all dance auditions by the time I reached my late teens, so professional ballet dancing as a career was a door closed to me.

However, I continued to excel academically, to the point I was able to matriculate a year early. I continued to dance, and eventually found work in cabaret (dancing the can-can three or four times a night keeps you fit, believe me!) while dancing occasional seasons with the Australian Dance Theatre a small contemporary dance company. With them, I danced before the Queen and Prince Phillip, dressed as a brolga! (See my post from December 2018 for more on this.)

In my forties I studied at the West Australian Academy of Performing Arts to 'update my expertise'. Hah hah! - when one is in one's forties, one's expertise does not enjoy being updated, and it was only with a struggle that I attained an Associate Diploma of Performing Arts. I also undertook Religious Studies (this was mainly in that glorious time when tertiary education was free in Australia!) and eventually I graduated Bachelor of Arts.

The BA with a Religious Studies major and a Dance minor has proved to be quite the least useful degree when seeking employment, but I was fortunate enough, due to a tip from one of the staff at WAAPA, to get a regular gig writing reviews of dance shows for Music Maker, and to my surprise I was head hunted by the Sydney Morning Herald to write for them, too. Since then I have continued to write reviews here and there, except for a three year break when I was traveling overseas in the late nineties.  When I got back from my travels, I went back into this line of work, writing for the Artshub website, balanced by teaching ballet to senior folk like myself until late last year, when I finally hung up my ballet flats, and have only written a few reviews in the interim.

Writing fiction, however, is a whole different kettle of fish. It was during my travels that I first thought of writing fiction since I was a little child. I had a tiring job as housekeeper at a hotel in Devon, UK, and every evening after work I would collapse in front of the TV to watch the soapies. But one night, before I turned on the TV, a sentence popped in to my head: 'To be left a widow at the age of twenty-one may sound like a tragedy, but, to be honest, I felt liberated by Reyel’s death.' I knew at once it was the start of a story. not one that I'd read, but a new one - my very own book! The next day I bought an exercise book, and every night after work  I would write for an hour or two. Of course, the result was not a very good book. First novels seldom are any good, but as the Bard of Avon said 'Tis a poor thing, but mine own'. 

So here I am trying hard to make sense of my third novel to complete The Talismans trilogy. The first two books have not sold particularly well - but for the creator, traveling hopefully is better than to arrive.