I am soon to take delivery of published copies of the first three books in my Doofuzz Dudes series. In the last three years I have written seventeen books in the series, so I decided that I’d better release the first three together or I’d never get them all published in this lifetime!

At school I loved writing and each year my poems or stories were published in the school magazine. On leaving school, I studied accountancy, which I continued to practice for the next twenty five years. I found that accountancy made use of the mathematical and logical section of my brain and hence I was unable to write creatively.

It was not until, at the age of 46, when I went back to university and studied acupuncture, that I found that my creativity resurfacing. At the grand age of 48 I began to write my first Doofuzz Dude story – ‘The Doofuzz Dudes Rescue Moondar’. I wrote half and then promptly abandoned it for two years, and it was not until I turned 50 that I became re-inspired. I finished ‘Rescue Moondar’, and just kept on writing. I am now 53 and just one week ago I finished the seventeenth Doofuzz Dudes Adventure.

Still, writing a book and having it in an acceptable form for human consumption, are two entirely different things. The problem is that we are too close to our works of art, and hence we can’t see the flaws. Firstly, I consulted the well known writer, Dr. Bob Rich, who gave me valuable guidelines on plot construction. I also encouraged friends, and children of friends, to read it and give their opinions. If you do this, you’ll find you’ll never hear back from ninety nine percent of people who promise faithfully to come back to you, but that one percent who do, can often say something very insightful.

When the script was as polished as I could make it, I then sought out another professional reviewer for a final opinion. My search led me to Ms. Beverley Asmus, who has been absolutely invaluable in bringing the Doofuzz Dudes series to life. She gave generously of her time, and gave me wonderful ideas on how to bring each of the stories to life. She gave me great ideas on character construction right through to creating teasers leading to the next story. Without her help I don’t know where I’d be. At last the Doofuzz Dudes were ready to be unleashed on the world!

Unfortunately, finding a publisher has not been so easy. Last year I posted the first manuscript to publishers, both in Australia and the United States. After receiving the umpteenth rejection letter I decided that the only other option was to self publish. This seemed like a formidable project, but in actual fact it has been the most exciting and challenging time of my life.

Of course, it always helps to know the right people! Firstly I did a course on self publishing at the NSW Writers’ Centre. At least I now knew about obtaining ISBN numbers!

I’d heard say that my twelve year old niece, Kimberley, was artistic, so I asked if she’d like to have a go at illustrating the stories. When I saw her art work I was knocked out. She immediately got the job! Her art work shows a quirky sense of humour which brings the stories to life. I found a graphic artist who designed three terrific covers for the first three books and then I found someone with infinite patience who put it all in a professional format for publication.

Of course, having the books in my hot little hands does not guarantee any sales at all. I rang around distributors who, as soon as they found that my books were self published, were not the vaguest bit interested. Oh well, now it was time to do a marketing course!

I signed up for a weekly marketing course by telephone with a marketing consultant in the United States. She gave me some excellent tips on self promoting and getting the book ‘out there’. Websites have been made or are under construction; a press release has been written; and other marketing plans are in the works.

So, I now look forward to a new door opening and hopefully the arrival of a flourishing time ahead. I can’t, for the life of me, work out why anyone would want to retire in their fifties. That’s exactly when we’ve got enough life experience to undertake exciting new projects!

By the way, I do have some tips that might help other writers.

Every day I do at least one thing that moves the project on to another level. This might mean writing five hundred words of a current manuscript; editing an old manuscript; writing something for the website; ringing bookshops; reading up on marketing strategies or getting printing quotes. This is like building a house – every little thing you do is just another brick in the wall (someone should write a song about it).

Harking back to what I said previously about asking for critical advice from friends and strangers – be careful here too. If you have a quirky outlook, you can’t expect someone with a conservative perspective to necessarily give you the best advice. On retrospect, I have deleted some good stuff just because a friend said, “You can’t say that!”

Further on the subject of asking for input from others – be careful about other people’s expectations. An ex-friend was kind enough to voluntarily suggest some catchy character names to me. Soon after, she began calling the series ‘our books’. Suffice to say, those names changed overnight!

Just because publishers, agents and distributors don’t want you, don’t take it personally. Who can be sure that publishers even read the manuscript you lovingly prepared and posted to them? Some publishers only bring out eight books a year and yet they receive thousands of manuscripts to review. If you do the maths on that one it is safe to assume that a lot of good stuff never sees the light of day. Still, I do have a chuckle when I see the ubiquitous ‘we don’t accept unpublished authors’ –Agatha Christie and Enid Blyton were once unpublished, were they not? Anyway, when you make it without help from anyone, your success will be all the sweeter!

Believe in yourself and everyone else will too. The more people out there who believe you’re going to be a success – the more positive energy being generated, and the closer you will be to your goal – and success!

So if you have a story that needs to be told, don’t hesitate – believe in yourself and put pen to paper or fingers to keyboard, and get to it!

For more information about the Doofus Dudes series go to www.doodlesbookshop.com.au where they are available for download or purchase. Roslyn has also constructed a games website at www.doofuzzdudesclub.com. Currently all info on the books are also available at Roslyn’s site: www.childrens-books.com.au.