Larissa Collins has always loved books and now she has written one of her very own.
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Be Brave Beatrice is the story of a young girl who gets sick with tonsillitis and the challenges she faces to get better.
The mum of two from Old Bar, who "lived" in the bookshop owned by her parents, Michael and Wendy, for the first seven years of her life and worked in a bookshop for her first job, only decided a few years ago to give writing a book a go.
"My dad had always wanted to write a book but never got around to it. He was really creative... writing, singing, acting... and then I was reading Jackie French's Diary of a Wombat and started chuckling because it was so funny. I thought, I could write a book!"
She enrolled in a masterclass course at the Australian Writers Centre but the night her children's book assessment was due her daughter developed a serious bout of tonsillitis, and ended up in the hospital emergency room.
Larissa said she was sitting in the hospital room and had three hours left to write and decided to base the story on the situation her daughter was in at the time. "My daughter Olivia used to get sick when she was younger with a gag reflex. It's all about children learning how to swallow medicine, deal with tonsillitis and get better. In real life she was on a drip."
She said writing a children's book was harder than she thought. "The first one I wrote didn't meet the criteria. I hadn't realised all the rules involved in it. When I did, I thought, this is not good."
The character has to fail a couple of times before they succeed and have a couple of different attempts before they succeed.
- Larissa Collins
Those rules include the rule of three. "The character has to fail a couple of times before they succeed and have a couple of different attempts before they succeed.
"The child should be the same age or a year older than the target audience that you're pitching to, so if the book is for three to seven year olds, the character should be seven or eight.
"The child should solve the problem, not the adult solving the problem and the ending should be happy or uplifting, not negative or difficult but a more rewarding ending."
Larissa said writing the story didn't take too long, but re-editing and getting feedback from publishers took the most time. Eventually she gained a publishing partnership with Austin MacCauley.
When it came to illustrations, the work was completed by someone at the Australian Writers Centre. "They didn't tell me who illustrated the book. They are employed by them and don't get credited."
She made suggestions that were incorporated, such as the character having dark brown curly hair like her daughter, and the cat being based on the Himalayan cat the family had when the girls were little. The illustrator also came up with clever inclusions of their own.
Larissa has a couple of preschool storytime events coming at libraries in the Mid Coast area, including one at Forster Library on Wednesday May 12 at 10.30am and another at Taree Library on Thursday May 27 at 10.30am.
A school clinical psychologist, Larissa said she was new to social media and her daughters have helped her get the word out.
She is very excited to see the book released. "It's amazing to think something you've never tried to do before, you've been able to do.
"I believe personally in not giving up. The theme of the story is you can do anything in life if you give it enough."
Be Brave Beatrice is published in the UK and is available on many online sites. The best place to purchase is https://www.ebay.com.au/ (make sure it is ebay Australia) and type in Be Brave Beatrice in the search bar.
Look for the $10 paperback price, and the one that says copies will be signed by author. Hardcover is $27 (look for the one that says it will be signed by author).
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