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I hope you have all been well and happy as we lead up to Christmas. Our house has been all about Tom as he graduated high school and is now undergoing his university entrance exams. So far he has been up and down with the exams he’s done and we’re praying he’ll get into the university he wants to study Graphic and Digital Design. Here’s a photo of us on Tom’s last day of school.
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And this a really special photo I took of Tom at graduation night surrounded by his mentors – from left to right: his junior football coach, Dan Cahill, his Principal all through high school, Peter Bothe, his art teacher for the last six years, Tim Garrity, his dad <3, and his senior football coach, Adrian Hickmott. We have been so blessed to have this village of kind hearted, decent men modelling manhood for our son and being integral in helping us raise him.
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Lara has been rehearsing for lots of end year performances that she’s taking part in, Annie, Mary Poppins, 90’s dance mix – you name it she’s in it! She and I escaped for a mother-daughter writers’ retreat for a couple of days in gorgeous Fremantle last week when Tom had a break in the middle of exams and I was able to choof off for a bit. It was lovely to get away just the two of us girls! I love this photo of one of our writing sessions where I was busy editing work for another writer and Lara was writing fan fiction.
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We also rebranded our physiotherapy business and welcomed new staff in the last couple of months, it’s been a hugely busy time at work.
We’re now counting down to our very first white Christmas and visit to the North Pole! We leave early December and I’ve started getting organised with packing snow gear. We’re starting off with a week in Wales for the writers’ retreat that I’ve organised with gorgeous writers joining us. This is one of the sitting areas in the house I’ve rented for us. Isn’t it magnificent?
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Straight after the writers’ retreat, my family is headed to Rovaniemi in Finland. It’s been a long-held dream of mine to visit the North Pole at Christmas because I’m a huge Christmas nut. This is the cabin I have booked for us!!!!
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And this is where it’s located! It’s about half an hour away from Santa Claus Village.
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After Finland, we have a few days in beautiful snowy Switzerland and then we’ll be celebrating Christmas Day on the slopes of Chamonix in the French Alps – can’t get much whiter than that! Then it’s off to Venice for research on my next book and to have New Years’ Eve there, a quick trip to see Romeo and Juliet’s balcony in Verona, before a week in one of our favourite cities, London. We’ll be away for most of the summer holidays and I’ll be off Facebook during that time. If you’d like to follow our adventures in Europe, follow me on Instagram, I’m there as @tesswoods_author. I’ll be uploading my favourite photos to share with my Instagram followers.
Before we leave though, I have library events to do with my lovely friends, Natasha Lester this Tuesday at Armadale Library and Rachael Johns on Friday at Joondalup Library. After interviewing Rachael on Friday, I’ll be running a Facebook competition to win her beautiful new book, THE GREATEST GIFT, so look out for that! You can still get free tickets for both events through EventBrite :)
Then we have Tom’s 18th birthday party to organise after sending him off to School Leavers week, as well as putting together the writers’ retreat workshops for Wales and work functions to organise on top of my day job so I know the time will fly!
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LOVE AND OTHER BATTLES NEWS:
In the first week of November, I wrote the final words of the first draft of LOVE AND OTHER BATTLES. It’s the absolute best feeling in the world to finish a story. I love the editing process but I find first drafts hard so I’m always delighted to have the story out of my heart and onto the page. For those of you who aren’t on Facebook or Instagram, this was the photo I uploaded :) You can kind of get my feelings about reaching the end!
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I then posted this on Facebook, which I’m copying here for those of you who missed my news about not releasing the book next year and my reasons behind this decision. I was floored by the love and support I received with this post, thank you to all of you who helped me feel so much better about taking my time with my book. Here’s what I wrote...
So I have an announcement to make and I hope my gorgeous readers understand and that you don’t form a mob and chase me up the street with pitchforks!
As you know, last week I finished writing the draft of my new book and after getting 100k words out, I was on a high.
The next morning, I had a long phone call with my publisher, Mary, and together we made the decision that I won’t be releasing LOVE AND OTHER BATTLES until 2019, rather than July next year as was originally planned.
The reason is that to release it on time would be a huge rush and it would place enormous stress on me. I have a pretty full on redraft to do before giving it to Mary to edit and then it needs to go through a structural edit with my editor Di Blacklock and then back to Mary to copy edit and all this would have to be done by April to get an advance readers copy ready for book reviewers before a July release.
I honestly didn’t think I could do that and do it well and Mary completely agreed. Taking a year over redrafts and edits instead of a few months will make all the difference in the world and I know that the book I give you in 2019 would be infinitely better than one I would have ready by next year.
For those of you who don’t know, I own two physio clinics with my husband. I work part time as a clinician myself and I do all the bookwork for our businesses. I’m also a mum to two teens so my writing has to fit in and around my other commitments.
Next year I had planned to undertake a charity project teaching high school girls in underprivileged areas life skills through creative writing. It was originally going to be for one school but it’s expanded now to three schools. And I’m running a writing retreat in July and helping co-ordinate the West Coast Fiction Festival in November. I think my dance card for 2018 is full!
When I thought about planning a book launch and going on a book tour in July/August and all the extra work that goes into interviews, writing blog posts etc etc when you release a new book, I wanted to cry (actually I did cry!!) It feels like I only just got home from book tour!
The most important thing to me is my family and I think slowing down to one book every two years instead of trying to pump out one a year will mean a happier and more relaxed mum which will hopefully create a happier and more relaxed home for my loved ones.
My beautiful publisher, Mary, was a huge support to me this week. All she cares about is that I’m not running on empty and that I take my time to really think about and get the best out of my new book rather than rushing one through. Anyone who works in the cut throat world of book sales would know how special it is to have a publisher that isn’t only about the $$$$.
I’m telling you all of this because it’s important to me to give you guys the full story and my reasoning behind this decision because you’ve been so supportive of me this far.
Thank you for waiting longer for me to give you another book. I promise to deliver something very special in around a year and a half.
PLEASE HELP ME WIN BOOK OF THE YEAR!
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I was absolutely stoked to find myself Top 10 nominated in Australia in three categories for the amazing and highly contested AusRom Today annual awards.
To say I’m blown away is an understatement! Thank you to the beautiful people who nominated me.
I’m up against some mighty competition in the shortlists including some of my closest friends (why do they have to be so talented??) It’s a tight race so far so every vote will count!
Voting takes half a second! If you’d like to vote for me and my book, all you have to do is follow the links below and hit like on the images that have BEAUTIFUL MESSY LOVE or my name on them. Easy peasy! Thank you so much my gorgeous friends, I’m very grateful for every one of you who votes.
To vote for Book of the Year click here:
https://www.facebook.com/AusRomToday/photos/a.1448875631816971.1073741853.620418747996001/1448875881816946/?type=3&theater
To vote for Cover of the Year click here:
https://www.facebook.com/AusRomToday/photos/a.1448874751817059.1073741852.620418747996001/1448875068483694/?type=3&theater
To vote for Author of the Year click here: https://www.facebook.com/AusRomToday/photos/a.1448873968483804.1073741851.620418747996001/1448874248483776/?type=3&theater
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BEAUTIFUL MESSY LOVE makes it onto Readings annual list, “100 great reads by Australian women”.
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(photo credit – Anthea Hodgson)
The first week of November was BIG! I finished my first draft of LOVE AND OTHER BATTLES, then came the AusRom Today nominations and it was topped off with this amazing surprise, to find BEAUTIFUL MESSY LOVE had made it onto the esteemed Readings Top 100 books.
When you write commercial love stories, you don’t expect to make literary lists alongside poets and biographers so this was a huge honour for me for which I’m incredibly grateful. Check out the company I’m in, it’s breath taking! Here’s the list:
https://www.readings.com.au/news/100-great-reads-by-australian-women-in-2017
LOVE AT FIRST FLIGHT AUDIOBOOK IS COMING!
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(Photo credit and sexy legs – Melissa Sargent)
I’m so excited to announce that LOVE AT FIRST FLIGHT is being released as an audiobook on December 1st and the pre-order link is now up! If you enjoyed BEAUTIFUL MESSY LOVE, this is where it all started with the story of Nick and Lily’s mum, Mel, and the troubles in her marriage.
The actors who play Mel and Matt totally nailed it!
If you want a sneaky peak listen of the recording, here’s a sample of the start of the book. I hope it hooks you in!
http://www.bolinda.com/audioexcerpts/9781460795149.mp3
And here’s the buylinks to preorder on
Bolinda -
https://www.bolinda.com/aus/search/results.aspx…
And Audible -
https://mobile.audible.com.au/…/Love-at-First-…/B073DC198F/…
Check out what the producers had to say about recording it, I was pretty stoked to get this kind of feedback from men. Romance isn’t just for women!!
“Love at First Flight was a fantastic and exciting book to read and produce. I recorded Matt’s part. I was engaged in every second of recording, and couldn’t wait to talk about the characters afterwards. This is a romance I will never forget.” Oliver Tribe.
“Co-producing LOVE AT FIRST FLIGHT was a fantastic experience, a real testament to Tess Woods’ powerful and engaging writing style. After each recording session, I found myself drawn into discussion with co-producer Oliver about our perceptions of each character, the twists and turns of the plot and with the thrill of what would happen next. I recorded Mel’s part so I had lots of questions about Matt. Once the dots were connected the result was spectacular. Exceptionally performed, the story is elevated to a whole new level when Wendy Bos (Mel) & David Tredinnick (Matt) so cohesively translate the emotions and desires of each character with such accuracy and precision. This is the audiobook for you, if you enjoy romance or not.” Keenan Wardrope.
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SCHOOLS LITERACY PROGRAMME:
When I was on book tour in August, I had lunch with beautiful friend, Rebecca Sparrow, in Brisbane. I shared with Bec how I was feeling gutted at the number of young girls I had seen fall victim to homelessness. My work with Share the Dignity, providing sanitary items for homeless girls and my work with Meals by Mums, providing warm dinners for homeless people, although both are desperately needed services, felt to me like bandaids for a huge problem, not really a solution.
Bec said to me, “What’s your goal with your work with homelessness?”
I had a good think about this and decided that my goal was to stop girls becoming homeless in the first place rather than trying to deal with the problem once they already were homeless.
This got us talking about how over 50% of Australia’s homeless women are there because of domestic violence issues. Others end up homeless due to drug and alcohol dependency and some due to poorly controlled mental illness.
What could I do to help?
Bec came up with a plan for me! Get to these girls BEFORE they make decisions that lead to them into ending up on the streets.
Girls are particularly vulnerable when they live on the streets – they are unable to protect themselves from being easy rape targets. That’s why my driving force is to help girls.
So the idea was born for my literacy programme and I am really, really excited to be launching this volunteer programme when school starts next year.
I initially approached one public high school in an underprivileged area about working with their middle school and senior school girls but this has now expanded to three high schools after other schools reached out to me (so I’m pretty relieved I don’t have to worry about releasing my own book next year!)
What I’ll be doing with the girls is an eight-week programme where I spend a day a week at each school running classes and having one-on-one time with the girls as well. I’m going to teach them creative writing skills to help them achieve better results in English, which is the only compulsory subject you need to pass in Year Twelve. We’re going to do workshops based on the topics - sex and consent, careers, social media, family relationships, healthy friendships and relationships, self-esteem, body image and drugs and alcohol. All our sessions will include group discussion, written work and feedback on individual writing pieces from me.
I have such high hopes for these girls not only for improving their literacy skills but for personal growth that I hope will lead them to making good life choices and avoiding making decisions or entering abusive relationships that could lead to homelessness.
I know I can’t fix the homeless problem. But if only one girl from these disadvantaged schools who may have ended up homeless doesn’t because she gains enough self-esteem from my course to make good life choices, then I will consider the year a huge success.
Once the course is done and the girls have done their eight creative writing pieces, I will help them all choose their strongest piece and here’s the very exciting bit – the AMAZING Karen McDermott of Serenity Press, through her Making Magic Happen Academy is going to publish an anthology of the stories in a book that can go into school libraries around the country to hopefully motivate and educate other girls. I am so crazy excited to be in charge of putting this book together. Can you imagine how proud these girls will be to all be successfully published authors by the end of next year?
I had planned to go into schools to teach girls, but what I wasn’t expecting was to be confronted with the very real need for more books in public school libraries. When I had a meeting at an underprivileged school, I was dismayed at how few books the library had on its bare shelves. I reached out to my followers on Facebook asking for book donations and OH MY GOODNESS did you guys respond! Over the months of September and October, over a thousand books arrived at my home, PO BOX, and physiotherapy clinics. Publishing houses, book stores, authors and readers all donated amazing books and last week I had the honour of dropping these books off to five high schools in need, and through the 12 Buckets Programme, one Primary School also received a massive donation of picture books. I can’t put into words how humbled and touched I was by the outpouring of generosity I witnessed when I put the call out for books. People I didn’t know sent book vouchers, school children from all over Australia donated their favourite books, anonymous donations of entire series like the Percy Jackson and Harry Potter series turned up from Book Depository. Some followers of mine who I know for a fact struggle for money themselves sent a bundle of brand new books that they inscribed with personal messages for the kids. Authors signed their entire children series and sent multiple copies. My house looked like a book factory warehouse. Honestly, I think I cried three or four times at the sheer awesomeness of it all.
I took Lara with me to drop off all the books and it was a real eye opener for her to visit the underprivileged schools and see just how much privilege she has grown up with. It’s important to me for her to know what an entitled life she has had and that’s it’s not equal when she gets an A at school compared to a child struggling with poverty or an unstable home environment who gets an A. I hope this experience helps her grow her social conscience as she approaches adulthood.
This photo collage is of just a tiny few of the piles and piles of books that were donated and gratefully received from absolutely overjoyed teacher librarians in six disadvantaged Perth schools last week.
THANK YOU EVERYONE!!!!
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I’ll be keeping you updated next year as I undertake the literacy programme with the girls. Wish me luck and please send me prayers that I actually am able to make a difference to their lives.
MY 2017 ULTIMATE HOLIDAY READING GUIDE:
It’s that time of the year where I share with you my absolute favourite books of the year. You guys are seeing this before anyone else. These are the 10 books that rocked my world this year!
http://www.tesswoods.com.au/bookclub/2017-ultimate-holiday-reading-guide
If you follow me on Facebook, keep your eyes peeled at the start of December when I post this reading guide because I’ll be giving you the chance to win signed and wrapped copies of both BEAUTIFUL MESSY LOVE and LOVE AT FIRST FLIGHT for Christmas just by commenting on the post.
WEST COAST FICTION FESTIVAL TICKETS ARE NOW ON SALE!
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This massive event that I’m helping organise is selling like crazy. Don’t miss out, grab your tickets today!!
Here’s the ticket buying link (a couple of things to note are that you need to be signed onto PayPal to buy a ticket and also it will show as a payment to Kathryn Willshire who is our treasurer):
https://www.eventbee.com/v/wcfictionfestival#/tickets
Newsletter subscriber winner:
Congratulations to Vanessa Winterton who is the winner of this gorgeous prize, a hummingbird spinner from Australian owned family company Aussie Spinners. I hope you enjoy your beautiful spinning hummingbird as you sit outside in the garden in the coming summer months!
Vanessa I’ll be emailing you to get your postal address.
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Next year I’ll continue to support Australian charities or small family run businesses with all my prizes so if you have a business you think I’d like to a buy a prize from, please let me know and I’ll consider promoting you. There’s no catch so drop me a line! (I’m looking for prizes that are around $30 in value and not impossible to ship).
Well my darlings, that’s a wrap for me for the year. Thank you for your support, especially all of you who reached out in June when I was struggling with family stress when my dad was sick in Melbourne and Lara was in Vietnam on her own and sick at the same time. I really appreciated all the letters of support and I also very much appreciated how much love you gave me when I released my new book in July.
Best wishes for a happy Christmas and I wish you all God’s richest blessings for next year. See you again in 2018!
Much love,
Tess xxx
P.S. Don’t forget to follow me on Instagram to see my crazy winter Christmas fashions! I have packed some beauties in my suitcase!!
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Love at First Flight and Beautiful Messy Love are in stores now.
You can also order them online as paperbacks or eBooks here:
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