We’ve jumped into daylight saving here (springing forward) and for some reason I’ve spent an hour or two frivolling on the internet, browsing craft projects for Christmas ornaments. (And yes, I know I should be writing, but . . . )

I do this every year. I find craft projects irresistible and have since I was a kid. I made mobiles from reeds growing near the swamp, tiny baskets from pine needles sown together and dolls house things from cotton reels and matchboxes. Nobody taught me these things: I think I got the ideas from books.

When I was about ten, my beloved godmother, seeing my interest, showed me how to make felt animals. She had masses of patterns, and one I got the hang of how they worked, I made up my own. I always preferred to make small ones. I remember a tiny black lamb with fuzzy white wool, a crimson horse, and others. I guess they were thrown out when we moved.  :(

These days I  like to make Christmas ornaments from paper or using natural materials, like leaves and gum nuts (from eucalyptus trees). One year, when I had to have my silver princess eucalyptus tree trimmed, I kept a lot of the thin, whippy branches and wove them into wreaths. I sprayed one with silver, and gave another one (natural) to a friend. She still has it and put it onto a screen she’d made from an old bed. It looks brilliant I think.

The gumnuts of the silver princess are naturally silvery white (see pic below), and I often use them as ornaments. Friends of mine use them too — they’re so pretty.

And whenever I’ve had the tree trimmed, I take the branches with the gumnuts and put them out on the verge and they disappear very quickly.

But you don’t need to have access to a silver princess gum tree, any gum nuts will do.  You can leave them au naturel or spray them gold or silver, or paint them by hand. 

But Christmas always brings out in me the desire to make new things.
I’ve blogged about this before, I know.

But since my last blog was about the Ginkgo tree, I thought some of you might like to see these Christmas ornaments made from Ginkgo leaves. From autumn leaves, when they’re beautiful and  golden.

They range from simple hanging ornaments of a leaf fastened with cotton, perhaps with an added bead or two, to collages, leaf garlands, Christmas displays — and how about this mobile? I’m sure the leaves would catch every whisper of air and dance beautifully, like the paper ornaments I’m so fond of. Like little fairies, aren’t they?

And though it’s a bit early for Christmas, I thought you might enjoy this ginkgo Christmas Tree.

Ginkgo (Ginkgo biloba) in Geelong. Photograph: National Trust

No, this isn’t a sarcastic, political post — it’s true. Here in Victoria (my state), we’re regularly asked to vote for a tree, as well as a bird and other things. 

The National Trust of Victoria began asking people to vote for a tree back in 2016, in an effort to to raise awareness about trees around Victoria and advocate for their protection by celebrating significant trees. It’s a nice idea, I think. Too many grand old trees get knocked down in the name of “progress” and this is one way of protecting them. You can see the list here.

To be eligible, the trees must be listed on the National Trust significant tree register, which it recognises up to 10,000 important trees in Victoria for their cultural, scientific, and historic value. Each year people nominate their favorite tree and a short list is drawn up. Then we’re asked to vote. It’s purely voluntary, and I think it’s also a bit of fun, scrolling through the list and deciding which tree to vote for.

Normally I’d vote for a native tree, but this year I’m going for this magnificent ginkgo tree. This particular tree was planted in the Geelong Botanic Gardens in 1859, and is more than 167 years old.  Another name for the ginkgo tree is the “maidenhair” tree, and that’s because the leaves look exactly like maidenhair ferns, only bigger, and in autumn they’re pure, brilliant gold.

Do you know the ginkgo tree? I first saw some many years in a beautiful old garden (The Alfred Nicholas Memorial Garden) in the Dandenong Ranges, about an hour from Melbourne. 

Actually, it was a grove of ginkgoes planted around a small lake, and I was there in autumn and the leaves were gloriously golden. The fallen leaves were scattered on the little lake like floating golden coins. It was a breathtaking sight and I’ve never forgotten it. 

Autumn ginkgo trees at the Alfred Nicholas Gardens. (From Shutterstock)

The Alfred Nicholas Memorial Garden is a beautiful garden to visit at any time of the year, but my favorite times are autumn and spring, when blossoms and flowers are everywhere.

Do you have a favorite tree? Or a favorite garden to visit?

Recently a reader reported this “distracting issue” in A BRIDE FOR MARCUS”. (see on the right.)

It was a missing full stop (or period if you’re American.)

Okay it was a pretty small error, but a couple of readers had contacted me saying they’d spotted a few mistakes in that book (though they didn’t say what), so I went through the manuscript again, and found a couple more small mistakes. I fixed them and then reloaded the e-book. (I can’t change anything on the print version.) But it was easier to spot the mistakes this time as it had been a long time since I’d reread A Bride for Marcus.

Copyediting is harder than many people think, especially for authors. There are two main types of editing — developmental editing, which is editing for plot, characters, story etc. The second type is copyediting,  which is editing for grammar and spelling, typos, missed words, characters whose eyes change color, and prose that’s awkward or confusing. (I blogged about editing before, if you’re interested.)

For me it’s the second type of editing that’s the hardest. My grammar is generally good, and so is my spelling (though I have to remember not to use Australian/English spelling for my books, since my main readership is in the USA. As well, my previous publisher was American, so I’m keeping the books consistent.)

But I’m a poor typist and I often make typos. Usually I spot them and correct them, but occasionally I’ll miss one or two. My trouble is, when I’ve finished writing a book, chances are I’ve also rewritten it or parts of it numerous times, and when it gets to that point, my brain sometimes reads what it thinks I’ve written, rather than what I’ve actually typed. Of course I’ll do a spell check. And Word flags words it thinks are wrong — BUT their suggestions are often wrong , sometimes badly wrong. 

When I was traditionally published, my books passed through the eyes of an editor, a copyeditor (and then came back to me) and then a proofreader. Even so, mistakes still slipped through. The most memorable was with  The Scoundrel’s Daughter. In it, I accidentally gave the Scottish nanny three different Mc names. I missed them, my editor missed them, the copyeditor missed them, and the proofreader, in the absolute final read-through, only picked up one of the three different names. 
Luckily I’d sent the manuscript to my friend Mary Jo Putney who spotted the different names and told me, just in time for me to notify my editor — the book was to go to print the very next day!

For my self-published books, I’ve employed two different so-called copyeditors, but neither one did a good job. One even did a bad job, inserting words that were plain wrong without telling me! So I’ve had to do most of the copyediting myself, with the assistance of some friends who offered to read the books and pointed out the odd mistake — thank goodness. 

I used to run every manuscript through a voice program, which read it back to me. That’s a great editing tool, and picks up all kinds of mistakes as well as word repetition and awkward phrasing. Unfortunately in the last update, the program now only reads back a paragraph at a time, which made it impossible. So now I’m on a search for a better voice program.

So while I do my very best to make my books error free, I hope you’ll forgive any small ones, or at least let me know so I can fix the e-books.