Debra Clewer's Blog: Travelling Through Time

There is a new fabulous review this week: https://reedsy.com/discovery/book/har...
Exciting times ahead! Currently, Harriet and the Secret Coins is under a rewrite and will hopefully be re-released later in the year.

Follow my latest interview with Just Write for Kids Australia on my website, https://www.clewerbooknook.com

My latest interview as a member of the Buzz Words review team is live on my website. https://www.clewerbooknook.com/general-8

This is a heartfelt and moving story of a little boy who wants to find his friend's missing memory. Wilfred lives next door to a nursing home and visits the residents regularly. When one of his resident friends, Nancy, seems to be losing her memory, he sets out to ask his father and the other residents what a memory is. They have varying replies and meanings, as a memory is not the same thing to everyone. With all the answers, Wilfred returns home to collect various items and takes them to his friend, hoping to help her remember. While at first, she wonders about a small boy visiting with what she thinks is a strange collection, one by one she handles them and starts to remember her childhood and the brother who went to war. Wilfred is happy that her memory has returned. Beautifully and simply written, this Picture Book has deep implications for therapy. As a puppeteer and former aged care worker with dementia residents, I can testify to the power of simple items for memory recall. How wonderful would our world be with many more Wilfred Gordon McDonald Partridges to share their love and concern for the older generation.

I am a relative latecomer to C. S. Lewis' children's books. I have been very familiar with his Christian writings, such as Mere Christianity and The Screwtape Letters. It's only in recent years that I have read The Lion, The Witch and the Wardrobe. I love the fantasy element as one who has always been into fantasy. I also love the allegorical nature of these books, the references to the Other World, Narnia, which is so much a reference to creation and reflection to heaven and Aslan as the Lord Jesus. Whilst the language and terms used are dated by today's standards, the story stands the test of time. Good wins over evil as long as there is no giving in to temptation. The use of talking animals is interesting. As a children's author myself, I often see submission guidelines on publisher's sites as "no talking animals." The young boy faced with dealing with the certain demise of his mother is willing to try anything to save her. How many of us have been in the same position? However, he resists the "easy" option of giving in to the wicked witch and does things the right way as per Aslan's instructions, and he is rewarded. I had to keep reading to found out what would happen next. This is the key to great story writing, the tool to keep the reader hooked. The down-to-earth and practical characters (Aunt Letty, Polly), and Digory's tussles with making right decisions provide a perfect foil to the foolish uncle magician and the evil witch who wields her powers over all but loses out in the end. Loved it.

I am getting close to finishing Harriet and the Secret Coins. This has been a two-year project, with much research into life in gold rush times in two local areas and interstate in Victoria. Last year I enjoyed visiting the Lambing Flat museum (Young, NSW), the Temora Goldfields museum and the Central Deborah gold mine in Bendigo. My two characters, Harriet Cooper and Will Taylor, find themselves involved in time-slip adventures whilst on a school excursion to visit the gold mining areas for research on a history project. There has always been a strong Chinese connection with our gold mining past, and these locations are no exception. In 1861, riots broke out at Lambing Flat between European and Chinese miners, who were suspected of finding more gold that the European community. The Lambing Flat museum was a fount of information, and there was even some discrepancy between the information available there and information from a family member who grew up in the area. It's all been a fascinating journey. I have been trying to add to the story line, and had an unexpected bonus right at home. My husband has three Chinese figurines which belonged to his late mother. I was studying them recently and noticed that their appearance was like that of three wise men. I went online to research the characters, and discovered that they are actually deities who represent three aspects of life: status, prosperity and longevity. Lu, the god of status, is represented holding a scroll. He was prayed to with the hope that the prayer's career would prosper. Fu, the god of prosperity, is represented holding an interestingly shaped sceptre, and his robes are red, adorned with dragons, and he wears a jade chain. (Very appropriate, given that my helpful dragon character is red.)He is sometimes depicted with a mountain of gold and silver above his head. Shou, the god of long life, is depicted holding a peach, and is the oldest of the three. Legend has it that he was born old. I have been able to incorporate the three deities into a Chinese grocery store in the Lambing Flat part of the story, sitting on the store owner's counter. Harriet explains to her friend the importance of the gods to the Chinese community. It has all added to my writing, and I love research and discovering new information. I am hoping for a mid-September release of this third novel in the series.

I have two short stories being published in a children's anthology later this year. One, titled The Great Cheddar Chase, features a rascally rat called Ratho. Now, while he is a grey rat, he is descended from the Lord Howe Island black rats who swam ashore and caused havoc after the ship S.S. Makambo ran aground in 1918. He escaped to the mainland while being taken for study. Ratho's great mission in life is to constantly evade being captured by the famous Persian cat detective, Ah Fur. And he does this very successfully. I have always had a bit of affinity for domestic rats, the pet kind. And bush rats, Rattus Fuscipes, the nocturnal Australian rat. I have a puppet, Ratty, who is of the Rattus Fuscipes line. Thinks that he is actually a lot smarter than he is. But Ratho is another rat entirely, and will feature in an upcoming series of short stories titled The Cat Chronicles. Will he ever be caught? And what will transpire when he joins his cousin Rodney the Scrap Rat, who only uses the finest trash cast-offs in his cafe? Can Ratho be trusted? Do I smell a rat? Perhaps the poor rodent is misjudged. Or is he?

I have been working on my third novel in the Harriet series, Harriet and the Secret Coins, for close to 2 years. The storyline involves Harriet and her best friend Will going on a school excursion, visiting three historical Australian goldrush locations, and time-slipping back to those places with adventures, via the means of an old red phone box. This next novel is a real adventure involving three dragons (two good and one evil), crooked fake police, the eternal class intimidator and unfair teachers. The story is in three parts, and each part is fiction based on historical fact. I have loved doing the research and visiting each location for that research.Along the way, Harriet finds gold sovereign coins and eventually a nugget. My original plan was to have them visit Lambing Flat (Young, NSW), Hill End NSW and Ballarat, Victoria. After visiting the Temora rural museum last year, I changed the second location to Temora. In October 2018, my husband and I visited both Ballarat and Bendigo, where we stopped at the Central Deborah Gold Mine. Fascinating, and the legend about how the mine got its name is too good not to use, so I changed the location of the school visit to Bendigo. While there we saw a replica of a giant gold nugget which had been found by a man using a metal detector in 1980. Now, my original story outline has always been to have Harriet discover a gold nugget to help her family, as her mother has lost her job and her step-dad doesn't earn much. Harriet is 11. After I had written some more to the next chapter involving crooked fake police who confiscate the coins, a newspaper story popped up on Google when I logged on to search for something. There was a story of a young girl finding a gold nugget in Bendigo on Mother’s Day 2019. She kicked what she thought was a rock and then asked her father if it was gold. It turned out to be a gold nugget worth $35,000. Truth stranger than fiction? Or is it an affirmation that I'm on the right track? And even stranger......just as I finished reading the story, I received an email from an online booking company to tell me that Bendigo has some great last-minute deals!I am also super-excited and planning ahead to my next book launch, hopefully in late August. (Provided I finish the novel first!) Recently as I drove down our main street, I spotted a tall model red phone box in the window of a second-hand store. Perfect for my book launch, I thought. The store was closed but I rang the owner who was away, and he put it aside for me. It’s actually a CD rack, with wooden shelves, absolutely perfect for stacking the books in. Along with my dragon character Gruffyd’s large promotional head, I’m planning a whiz-bang launch (I hope!) Stay tuned!

Last month my husband and I visited Tasmania and spent a day in Hobart. While looking for a particular shop, I re-discovered the Cat and Fiddle Arcade, which I had visited back in 1978 with my late husband John on our first trip there. The arcade has been upgraded, but the wonderful Cat and Fiddle animated clock still acts out the classic rhyme on the hour. It was unveiled in 1965 and is still going strong. So many of us grew up with that classic rhyme, along with many others. I hope today's children are growing up with the same lovely verses that they will cherish. It has inspired me to write a new take on this classic, with mention of The Owl and the Pussycat and perhaps others. I have read many articles over the last few years that suggest re-writing fairy tales as suggestion when looking for new writing ideas. I've tentatively titled it Rhymes for Our Times, and I suspect it will be more for an adult audience who may be familiar with various characters and rhymesmentioned. In a nod to our modern age, social media gets a look in. The theme is along the lines of marriage, as the Owl and the Pussycat sailed away to be married. I have opened my take with the dish proposing to the spoon, who is delighted to accept. They decide they need music, and a cat who plays the fiddle is mentioned. Spoon needs a dress, and will ask Bessie the cow who is the finest dressmaker around their way. Spoon makes the comment that the cow will be over the moon about it. They want to contact the Owl and the Pussycat to get the number of the pig celebrant who performed their ceremony. I haven't gone any further with it at this stage, and I don't know really what thoughts will come along. As I'm doing it in rhyme, I want to get the meter right, and I'm sure it will be a lot of fun to put together. Imagination is great.

Head on over to my author site-www.clewerbooknook.com for the latest blog and other pages. And if you need a book character brought to life for your story-telling, visit me on www.clewerpuppets.com.