So, what’s been going on with Tony the writer? In a word – notbloodymuch.

Over the past year, writing has taken a bit of a back seat to other pursuits such as acting and teaching. That is to say, while I’ve been busy working with the likes of Tony Rogers, Ivan Engler and Tina Hutchence to get existing projects rolling, I haven’t actually been creating anything new. Don’t know why exactly. Is there such a thing as writer burnout? For the sake of the story, let’s say there is and I had it.

Anyway, I’ve had quite a few acting jobs since joining Middleman Agency, although I rather suspect not unreasonably that my beard has had quite a few acting jobs and I’ve done a bang-up job as its driver. Whatever, I’ll take it.

I’m teaching English in the evenings in Sydney, which has its own rewards but one of the more interesting ones comes in the form of my colleagues. Tim, for instance, is a damn likeable young fellow who is in the process of gaining his PhD in creative writing and has a bit of thing for Stephen King. The more I’ve been talking to him about this, that and the other thing to do with English in all its glory, the more I’ve have had this niggling urge to get back into writing.

But, despite all the creative types I surround myself with, my own creative juices still seemed to have become hopelessly and irreparably congealed into a slow-moving collagenous mass. Every time I sat down to the keyboard, my fingers hit the keys with the same gusto as they always had, but the words on the screen looked suspiciously like an illiterate monkey had vomited alphabet spaghetti into a blender. I had all but given up on hope of ever writing again, truth be told.

And then, just a couple of months ago, the weirdest thing happened. We got funding. Not just any funding but development funding from Screen Oz for a series that has been bouncing around like a demented pinball for over a decade. Awesome, right?

But then, and this is the point to this waffling post, an incredibly talented young girl named Ada Vercoe started getting into my head with simply amazing ideas for a novel that I had put away indefinitely, or so I thought. Who would have thunk that a girl of so few years would have a boot big enough to plant in an aging writer’s butt and get him typing coherently again? The book, my first or, more accurately, our first, is going from strength to strength and I have Ada more than anyone to thank for it.

Tony

By the way: if anyone is interested, the book is an adventure, fantasy, comedy romp about a young girl who has powers which connect her to nature, and render her a member of an elite group. These guys are entrusted with maintaining balance between the inherent destructiveness of mankind and the delicate tolerance of the natural world. She must go into battle against shapeshifting baddies who have taken over political leaders in order to coerce them into screwing up the environment and destroying all life on Earth. Fun, fun, fun.

Tony the sometimes writer, soon to become Tony the all times writer... again.