A little while ago, I had a chat with the founder of an online writer’s academy I attend. We talked about writing goals. Specifically, how to succeed with your one-month writing goals.

My first goal was to finish a chapter of my junior fiction novel I was writing with my son. I achieved that goal by the end of the month.

My second goal was to succeed in online writing. So, how did that go?

I have to shuffle back in time to answer that question.

When I first started publishing online in 2019, it was to improve my writing skills. I’ve always loved writing, but everything I’d ever written was for myself. It was the first time I was sharing my writing with the world. …

My bookshelf is crammed full of children’s books. There are picture books, middle-grade fart-joke books, tween adventure books, and young adult coming-of-age books.

Sure, I have actual kids living in my house, so that’s one of the reasons I own a lot of children’s books.

When visitors come over, they marvel at the children’s literature that fills my shelves, tables, and floors in my house. They tell me how lucky my kids are to have so many books to read. I nod in agreement. Sure, those books are all for my kids.

To tell you the truth, I purchased more than half of those books for myself. …

My mother visited my house the other day. When she opened the kitchen pantry, she let out an audible gasp. She stared at me with a perplexed look.

“Why on earth do you have so many breakfast cereals in here?” She asked, flabbergasted.

I shrugged. “Well, I eat granola for breakfast, and the kids eat Weetbix and Rice Bubbles in summer and porridge in winter. I’ve got Nutrigrain for after-lunch snacks. And then there’s Coco Pops Chex for dessert. Oh, and that box of limited-edition Unicorn Froot Loops is just for fun. …

This story isn’t an unusual one. It’s quite common. I grew up in Australia, but this story could be universal. This is the story of a teacher who failed.

And there lies the problem.

Are teachers put under so much scrutiny and stress today, that in the end, the hopeful, bright-eyed newly graduated teachers end up quitting after just a few years?

Or is there something else that makes them quit?

I lasted eight years as a teacher, but during that time, I stopped for almost a year to raise a baby. So, I guess you could say I was a teacher for seven years. …

My nine-year-old son recently asked if I could help him create his own YouTube channel. I thought it was a great idea. He’s a bit shy and I figured it would be a good way to bring him out of his shell. He’d also learn valuable skills by creating videos, editing them and sharing them online with his friends.

Then I stopped and thought about what a YouTube channel really means. I asked my son why he wanted a YouTube channel so badly. …

One of my favourite online writers has a writing superpower. She has the ability to suck me right into her stories and make me feel like I’m the only person reading them. As if they were written just for me.

It’s like she’s my best friend and she’s spilling all of her dirty secrets to me.

I can almost imagine sitting in her lounge room, both of us digging into a big bowl of popcorn while a soppy romance movie plays in the background. She leans over and says, “you’ll never believe what happened to me yesterday…”

She has me hooked from her first word, and I’m there until the last. Her writing style is effortless, inviting, with just enough shock value to keep me wanting more. …

Last weekend my girlfriends and I went away to a winery to celebrate our shared milestone birthday. This year, we all turned forty.

Well, two of us have hit that milestone, while our other friend can say she’s still a spring chicken in her 30s for the next few months. But who’s counting numbers these days?

It certainly was a milestone birthday. Forty years old! But what makes turning forty so special? And why did I feel a sudden sense of apprehension in the years and months leading up to it?

There’s no need to worry. Seriously. And to make you feel at ease about turning forty here’s a little guide to all the not-so-talked about things to expect when you turn the BIG 4–0, as told by a newbie forty-year-old herself. …

Toddlers are like old, drunk people. You can’t understand what they’re saying half the time. They fall over a lot. They get cranky for no reason. They poop their pants. But in the end, you can’t help but love them.

Before I had kids, I’d heard about the “terrible twos,” and witnessed a few odd temper tantrums in shopping centres. But what I didn’t know and wish someone had told me earlier are some less obvious things.

Toddlers are like puppies

After having kids, what struck me as weird was how toddlers follow you everywhere. It was kind of cute at first. …