Arrival
I am super excited this morning knowing that my children’s book, Ty’s Roller Coaster Ride, is nearly here. It is still at the printers. I am not sure of the wait time for that, then there will be another few days of transit, but in terms of the book’s journey, that is close. And this is not just my book, it is a joint effort between my niece, Sarah Giblin who created the illustrations and me. Once the copies arrive, I will need to get half of them to the Great Barrier Island where Sarah lives. I have had an offer from someone to take these books down all the way to Great Barrier if they are here by Monday. I emailed my agent this morning to see if she had any idea of when I can expect them. She was going to contact the printing division. I am still waiting to hear from her. The books would really need to be dispatched tomorrow if they were to make that connection.
The reason for my excitement is because yesterday, my talented friend worked on my website and now Ty’s Roller Coaster Ride is up there along with The Collective Us and Who Is Me? and ready for sales once the books arrive. It has brought the whole experience that much closer.
It was years ago that I wrote the story, with various changes in that time and also several years since I approached Sarah about illustrating it. But finally, after all the waiting, the book is nearly ready.
I have always been close to Sarah, who spent one long summer with our family, riding horses with her friend, and swimming in the eel-infested pool with my kids. She is four years older than Ty (not his real name) and was in between my eldest two in age, so slotted in perfectly with the family. As we lived a long way apart, we didn’t see each other that often so it was lovely having her for the whole summer. That must have been in Janurary 1999 because she was staying when we experienced the big flood, which I wrote about in Who Is Me? Feather 9, P46. Gosh that is almost 25 years ago. I had already written the story then and it wasn’t until seven or eight years ago that I decided to take it further. I am a great believer in timing always being perfect, so for whatever reason this has been delayed, I am sure now is the perfect timing for publication.
Only a few more days.