When God Does the Schedule

As I wrote my last post in July for ICFW, the registrations for our Australasian Christian writers CALEB conference were open. I shared, “I believe the CALEB conference should be a MUST for Australia and New Zealand Christians who are writing - whether it be for the Christian market or general one.” And after this conference in October, do I still think so? Yes, even more so!



      Rochelle Manners with her Wombat
and Even Before Publishing authors



Ruth, Bonetti, Anne Hamilton and Jo Wanmer











Each year these conferences have kept on improving and it was great this time to have more publishers present to share with us. Those of you who have been privileged to share at such conferences know the delight of meeting author friends again and getting to know other authors, writers, editors and folk in the publishing industry.


CALEB Award dinner
Finalists waiting for the winner.



Writing exercise at master class

The sessions on both full days sought to cover topics for fiction and non-fiction writers both published and unpublished. The Friday included Master classes on writing Fantasy and Young Adult books and the Romance genre - which I presented. Other sessions included “Over the Ditch” - on writing in New Zealand, Spiritual obstacles in Writing and Devotional Writing - which Ray presented. Included on many and varied sessions on the Saturday were the panels I shared with other published authors about “Romancing the Story” and “Writing a Series”.

Then of course there was the CALEB Award dinner with some excited finalists waiting to hear the winner in various categories.

This year, instead of flying to Brisbane, my husband Ray and I decided we would put our car on the Spirit of Tasmania ferry to cross Bass Strait and spend several weeks on the Australian mainland before and after this great conference weekend. From Melbourne we would travel out west up to Queensland to attend the conference and then back down the east coast to Sydney on the way to Victoria to get on that ferry for home 6 weeks later. We planned to try and book as many speaking and book-signing appointments as we could. However, the months beforehand while we tried to organise our schedule ended up being a very busy time with commitments, especially trying to finish writing projects.

Of course, from the start the whole venture was much prayed about and we tried to leave it all in God’s hands to open and close doors for us. Now we can testify once more that God is the very best scheduler any writers can ever hope to enjoy the benefits of. That doesn’t mean there were no challenges or unscheduled events. Sounds just like “life” doesn’t it?

Click on the link below to see details of this beautiful shop. A real privilege to share there.
Cornerstone shop in Erina, Gosford area of New South Wales.

Book-signing at Cornerstone at Erina

This is one of the most beautiful Christian bookshops we've ever seen.
Also has a great café at back with an outdoor courtyard with tables

We were able to do book-signings in Christian bookshops at Orange and Erina in New South Wales, and at a general bookseller in Dalby on the Darling Downs west of Brisbane.

The plan was also to visit briefly other Christian bookshops in towns we drove through to at least introduce ourselves as published authors to the staff. We had a list of shops but were really saddened to discover quite a few had closed their doors, including in major country towns like Albury and Tamworth. With online and e-book sales becoming more prevalent, many shops are doing it very tough. Over the years I have worked as a volunteer in small independent shops and know the ministry these can have. It is sad for us as writers of course. It is even sadder to have these real opportunities disappearing to share with folk who may never enter a church door but will venture into a Christian shop and leave with material God can use to show His love in their need, to draw them to Himself.

Another challenge was a health one. During those hectic weeks before we left Tasmania, Ray had visited his doctor to have treatment for a sore on his face. A couple of weeks into our trip, in Dalby God provided a very experienced doctor in skin cancers who even sacrificed his afternoon off to correctly diagnose and cut out the skin cancer - fortunately a carcinoma, not melanoma but which still needs further treatment by a specialist now we are home.


So Ray had a dressing on his face all through our time in Brisbane. When we needed to find another doctor as we continued on our travels, God again had us with the right friends at the right place whose doctor was only around the corner and without delaying our journey was able to check the wound and remove the many sutures. Was it merely a coincidence that many weeks before we had arranged to stay with my brother near, Dalby, have appointments there, visit these friends ten days later? No way!

My dear Hunter Valley romance writer
friends of many years.

 Ray and I had not only a rich time of fellowship at the conference and bookshops. Besides God’s doctor appointments, He also organised the three Sunday church services where Ray preached and the various other meetings we both were able to share something of the writing journey our faithful, loving God is still taking us on. There were wonderful moments right through those six weeks of unexpectedly meeting old friends and sharing with family members, some not seen for many years.

It was a real delight to see an aunt of mine from South Australia I have not seen for over fifteen years who just “happened” to be visiting my cousins in Brisbane while we were there. We travelled 5,124 kilometres with so many other “God incidents” during those six weeks that I am still awed by. I am often the “list maker”, the main “organiser” in our family. I like to know why, when, where, what and how. Once again God has reminded me that HE is in control, that when I hand over all that I am, all my ambitions, self and pride, HE will be able far more affectively to use me in His service where and when and how HE wants to.

Mary Hawkins's first book was published twenty years ago. Since then her books have been released in 19 titles and she is now trying to do final edits on her current manuscript before submitting it to a publisher.

She is delighted that her Heartong Presents historical and contemporary inspirational romance novels are now available again as e-books from Barbour Publishing through their Truly Yours Digital Editions.

Check out the video trailers for her current Baragula books and especially the new one for historicals, The Southland series, on YouTube.

A TRIBUTE TO THE "JENNY BLAKES" -- WRITERS' HELPERS

A few years ago, I heard online about a lady called Jenny. I can’t even remember now just when and where I started to hear of her.  At first she was often just mentioned as “ausjenny” and it was some considerable time before I discovered more about her.

Many authors overseas as well as in Australia now know her through her blog,  Come Meet Aus Jenny where she has featured many on interviews, told about their books. This kind of exposure is invaluable to published authors. I noticed that Lisa Harris mentioned in her post on ICFW last Tuesday that it is essential for a writer to "get the word out" about her book, and "ausjenny" may not even realise how much help she has been to us.

In the last few years, things have changed a great deal with many more blogs now available to try and follow. However, at that time I personally had a very heavy schedule and found it difficult to keep up with the internet writing scene, especially blogs, but this “ausjenny” was one of the first I heard about as being an Australian in this Christian fiction blog arena. Okay, so I know now I was  rather slow to catch on as she has had her blog for the last five years.  

For some time I did not even know her real name, did not know until this wonderful woman who was supporting authors overseas began to help and focus more on the increasing number of Australian authors published in Christian fiction. Then I discovered this prolific “Writers’ Helper” was not a writer herself, has no ambition to be a published author. Eventually the news filtered through that “ausjenny” was a Jenny Blake who loves books, especially Christian fiction and was a volunteer at an Australian Christian bookshop. That was only the beginning of my discovering her many and varied talents.

I know that the last few years have been a very tough time for dear Jenny with health and family, including the passing of her mother. But has that stopped her doing what she can where and when she can to help authors? No way!

This is just one personal example. My husband’s publisher told him he really needed to do more promotion for his 31 Day Devotional series. While I’ve had a website  for a while now and finally ventured into having a blog, Ray and I are both technically challenged in this whole modern era of the internet. A writer friend told me how good Jenny was at setting up blogs,  so who did we turn to for help? Jenny Blake of course and she was wonderful.

Since then Jenny has been very involved in helping start online ventures for Australian writers. Currently, with Narelle Atkins, she is one of the administrators of our Australian Christian Readers Blog Alliance , and the last few weeks the new Australasian Christian Writers Yahoo group and the new Australasian Christian Writers  blog.  What would we do now without you, Jenny?

I believe there are other Writers Helpers that so often we never really know about. These days, published authors simply have to be involved on the World Wide Web and promotion in all kinds of areas so readers know our books are available.  There are others like Ray and I who need heaps of technical help. I know I still have to spend far more time on social media and promotion than I want to. It takes up valuable time I’d much rather spend writing my books. How much harder it would be without our Jenny Blake.

So, here’s a very big “Thank you” to all those folk who love books, who have no ambitions to be writers themselves but seek to support us in practical ways  - as well as praying for us. May we never be tempted to take your help for granted or forget to thank God for you.

And, dear Jenny, this is my personal thank you for all your support and prayers for Ray and I as well as the heart you so obviously have for Christian writers.

Would love to hear comments from other writers around the world about their own invaluable  “Jenny Blakes”.  Perhaps there are other readers who would love to help writers "get the word out" about Christian novels. There may be some authors reading this who personally have been also helped by our Aus Jenny Blake over the years.

Mary Hawkins lives in Tasmania, Australia, with her retired minister husband. They have three adult children and six grandchildren. She is the author of 19 titles and is delighted her Heartsong Presents contemporary Search series and historical Great Southland series are now  available for readers again as e-books through Truly Yours Digital Editions