It was 2011. Post-quake Christchurch and I was a 35-year-old mother to a toddler, running a business, managing the rebuild of our home, and doing the odd bit of freelance writing. Life was a bit crazy.
I had actually been on a film set in Invercargill when the big quake hit, working on a behind-the-scenes magazine story. I never got the interviews I needed. Instead, I hitched a ride with a bouncy glass truck whose driver hadn't had any contact from his wife. We sat in almost silence listening to talk radio for 12 hours.
When I finally filed my story, a new editor had taken over and the commissioned piece was rejected. This never happens - but the story, I admit, was crap. I didn't have the headspace to write it. My husband asked me why I even bothered being a journalist - wasn't it always stressing me out? Wasn't the pay crap? I mean, yes and yes, but to me it was so much more. I had seen myself as a writer since I was a child. Did he really think I would be happy just sorting out all the admin for his dream business, making skis?
The truth of it hit me hard. I had never once questioned my choice to be a journalist. But now I was thinking about what else I could do with my journalism degree and my love of words. Marketing felt like selling out (spoiler: my income these days is 90% marketing work) and I didn't really want a full-time journalist job with so much else to juggle. I thought of kids' books. I was reading them constantly and was always in awe of the good ones - and also surprised by how many terrible kids' books made it into print.
I had just been to the Yayoi Kusama exhibition at the City Gallery in Wellington and my mind must have been full of her playful and immersive dots. I picked up a pencil and wrote on a scrap of paper "This is Spot. He is a Dot...." a whole story unfolded and I was so delighted, I started mocking it up into simple graphic layout. I had no idea what to do next.
And then I got busy so nothing else happened.... for years. But the idea of writing kids' books stuck in my head. I heard a little story on RNZ about a police officer who sang to a kea to keep him calm on the way to the animal hospital. "That's a kids' book," I thought. And made a note on my phone. Then I bumped into someone who worked with Kea Conservation and that story slowly started to take shape until it was published by Potton & Burton in 2024.
Was it time to dust off Spot the Dot? It would seem so. I got some help with revisions and then it was accepted by EK Books for simultaneous release across five markets. It only took 15 years. My toddler? He just turned 18.
And it took me almost that long to see what the story was really about. It was me who was the lost little dot trying to find where I fit. If I'm honest, I'm not there yet. But like Spot, I've "found a nook, right here in this book".
I did a workshop recently with Tina Makereti at Readers and Writers Akaroa festival, entitled, "The story is wiser than us." Her workshop reinforced what writing Spot the Dot taught me – that the story sometimes knows things the writer doesn't yet.
