Do they know it's...

The countdown is on!

Suddenly it’s Christmas. Have you noticed?

There are decorations up in windows and Christmas songs playing in every shop.
Has it always been this early?
I’m not sure, but it feels like we’re whooshing along to the end of the year and with every mince pie I see and tinkly bell I hear, I want to s l o w d o w n and stop doing as much.

BUT, it is also the busiest time of the year with more stuff in my calendar than ever and more deadlines with work than I want to think about!

I’m guessing your the same which is why this time of year is always so tricky, so take care, go easy on yourself and try to rest as much as possible. (Said to remind myself as well as you.)

For this weeks Creatively Working, I’m chatting to Andrew Einspruch, a very talented author and technical writer about how he makes it all work and if you’d like me to write about you here, please get in touch!

Hello Andrew! Tell me about your writing journey so far and your books.

My first work was writing articles for Australian computer magazines back in the late 1980s and early 1990s.
I then had a chance to place a children’s book with an education publisher which came out in 1996.
Over the more than two decades that followed I wrote more than 100 education books, mostly to specification, for a variety of publishers and on a wide range of topics, from how The Australian government works to how rides at a theme part work. Some of these still get a few royalties, but most are out or print or were flat-fee books that didn’t generate further income. 

I have also written for children’s television, including a season of Hi-5 and a season of Cushion Kids.

In 2016, I decided to try writing an longer idea that had been kicking around my head for a few years. I thought it might be a little 35k YA novel, but it turned into The Western Lands and All That Really Matters, a humorous fantasy series with strangely specific weak magic, animals and humans speaking and interacting as equals, stupidly long names, and wäÿ töö mänÿ ümläüts. I self-published the six novels and two stand-alone prequels between 2018 and 2023.

I've also published a non-fiction book, Tech Writing Tips: A Practical Guide for Technical People aimed at tech-y folks who have to produce documents at work, but who would really rather not.

What writing-related jobs/business do you do/have?