Storytelling: The Gruffalo

A mouse took a stroll through the deep, dark wood...

My kids love the book The Gruffalo by Julia Donaldson. Okay, I confess, I do to. The storytelling is superb. When I found out it was now a stage production, I got a little excited. When I found out it had sell out seasons on West End and Broadway, had become a musical and was still aimed at children, I was very excited.


So the kids and I went and saw The Gruffalo.














Tamlyn Henderson, Stephen Anderson and Crystal Hegedis in The Gruffalo

Oh... my... gosh... I LOVED it. It was brilliant. There were 3 actors in total, sharing the roles of mouse, fox, owl, snake, the gruffalo and story teller.

It was funny (for both adults and the littlies), clever, simple (not scary) and just plain charmed the socks off everyone in the audience.

Oh, and my kids had a ball - they want to see it again.

Now the Winner 2009 Sydney Theatre Award: Best Production for Children, my recommendation is take the kids and see it when it's in your area. And if you don't have kids? Beg, borrow or steal some. It's worth it!

Is my BUT too big?

I had planned to blog about something completely different today. But you know what they say about the best laid plans and all that.

What changed my mind was reading Nathan Bransford's blog on January 21st. His guest blogger, Jon Gibbs told the story of his Gran:

Never shy about giving people the benefit of her opinion (whether it was asked for or not) my old gran was always telling someone their ‘but’ was too big.

On the face of it, that seems a little rude, even for my old gran, but she wasn’t talking about pants’ sizes. She was referring to those built-in excuses we like to keep handy, in case our sub-conscious starts prompting us to chase our dreams.

It got me thinking about my big but (and not the one I sit on *grin*).
But I don't have time.

A new goal for 2010... to lose my but!!!

To this end, I'm going to start a "My Excuse Monday" column, poking fun at the but in all of us. To get "My Excuse Monday" started here are the first two excuses:Reprinted with permission from Sam Morrison

Writing Emotion

I love that saying. When I think of books that I hold dear, the ones I read and read again, they are the ones that make me feel I'm part of the story. They draw me in until I'm laughing or crying with them.

It's this emotion I want to bring into my stories. But how do I do it? And how do I know that I've done it?

In the next few weeks I'll be hearing back from judges (and possibly editors) from various places I've sent my manuscript. I guess how much they loved or hated my writing will reflect how much I drew them into my story. Fingers crossed they read with emotion. If not, then I will follow the words of the other saying and hope next time I fail better ;)