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Tuesday, June 21, 2011

Incurring the Wrath of the Mummy!!! - with Natalie Anderson

So as I mentioned last month, we’ve moved back to the city that literally rocks - Christchurch. We’ve left what books we did bring in boxes, no point in putting them out on bookcases when a decent aftershock will only make them fall out! Thanks so much for your book culling comments too – the winner from that is Scarlet Wilson! Scarlet, please email me at natalie(at)natalie-anderson(dot)com and I can get the book into the post for you!

So we’re settling in, the move has brought some little challenges but it’s really pretty ok. My biggest effort has gone into settling the children – especially the elder two into school. Here in New Zealand the norm is to take a cut lunch from home. My daughter takes a ‘no-wrap’ container with mini containers inside. The son uses a stainless steel tiffin that is the cutest contraption ever (he loves how it all stacks together and has a cool closing device).


He likes sandwiches. She hates them. I do what I can to accommodate preferences. But I noticed that in the first week or so of the new school, neither of them were eating much.

Cue the mummy-alarm-bells!!!


Not eating lunch must been some kind of anxiety, or lack of time, or some kind of problem... The dreaded New School Nerves?


What’s a mother to do?


Well I went to the shop and bought a number of treaty things, anything to tempt them. Worked pretty well for the daughter, but the boy was still coming home with untouched sandwiches.


And then I thought hard about that child. One of his current interests is ancient Egypt and mummification. He likes the whole promise of the apocalypse if you open the hidden burial chambers and all that fun, ghoulish stuff. So, relating that back to the uneaten lunch? I decided to threaten him. I wrapped the sandwiches in the white paper and scrawled across the top in permanent marker:

Eat these or face the curse of the Mummy!


Pretty simple. I drew a bat in the corner (I have no idea if there are bats in Egyptian chambers, but I figured it gave it a suitably spooky look). And guess what?

The sandwiches got eaten.

Now any nice parenting blog will tell you that kids like messages in their lunchboxes – you can even buy premade lunchbox messages which is pretty cute. But to my mind, store bought kind of takes the fun out of it!  Surely no child wants the same message. My kids are different – with different senses of humour, different needs – the eldest is the more anxious one, the worrier, nervous about who she’s going to hang with for that never-ending lunch hour. So she gets the sweet messages, the ones where I write something to boost her mood – just that I love her, or am proud of her. The boy is more laid back, has a wacky sense of humour and a fantasy-rich mind. So he gets the curses.


I did make one mistake though – when I labelled the pack as ‘Baboon Snot Sandwiches: Eat Them or Else.


He didn’t eat them. Because they sounded ‘gross’.


And here was me thinking that was the point! Clearly I was wrong. However the one where if he 'didn’t eat it his toes would fall off’ - that got eaten. So we seem to be working out the right kind of threats and curses. I’ve had to stretch out from plagues of locusts and armies of undead... And of course, now coming up with a Mummy Curse every day is becoming a bit of a challenge – usually I write fun and flirty books for grown-ups, not middle grade ghosty stories!!! 



But as it happens, I do have one book about to come out where I had the chance to write some truly wicked messages... Dating and Other Dangers is all about a guy who gets named and shamed by several anonymous wenches on a dating reputation website, he hunts down the web-mistress, takes one look at her and challenges her to three dates with him to prove it was all libel...

So the book is based around those three dates and their respective blog wars about it – and yes, there are some mean messages and curses hurled on those blogs!

This book was such a fun one to write – I think the most fun for me ever.... I guess I have a love of the evil curses as much as my son!

So I’ve a challenge for you now – in the comments, leave a Mummy Curse that I can put in the boy’s lunch box and I’ll put you in the draw to win a copy of DATING AND OTHER DANGERS!

(Winner will be drawn 24 June and I’ll edit this post so you know!)


Edited to add: The winner is Pat Cochran! Pat, please email me at natalie(at)natalie-anderson(dot)com and I'll get your copy into the post for you. Thanks so much everyone!


Natalie Anderson adores a happy ending, which is why she always reads the back of a book first. Just to be sure. Along with happy endings, she loves peppermint filled dark chocolate, pineapple juice and extremely long showers. Not to mention  spending hours teasing her imaginary friends with dating dilemmas. She tends to torment them before eventually relenting and offering – you guessed it, a happy ending. She lives in Christchurch, New Zealand with her gorgeous husband and four fabulous children.
If, like her, you love a happy ending, be sure to come and say hi on www.facebook/authornataliea and on Twitter @authornataliea, or her website/blog: www.natalie-anderson.com.

10 comments:

Mary Preston said...

I am terrible at this, but it was fun.

Enclosed within this tomb,
The breath of dusty life,
The Mummy is eternal,
So, beware the cursed evil.

marypres(AT)gmail(DOT)com

Unknown said...

i really am sooooo bad. but


mummy mummy
they packed your tummy
with lots of crummy herbs and molds
needless to say they was not dummys

Pat Cochran said...

Woe unto you! Refusing to ingest this
lunch offering will waft upon thee an
wicked wailing of a waggle of winged
wyvern!

Pat Cochran

Unknown said...

ooo thought was poem, agh though i read curse


the mummy insists that you eat this

eat or your guts will crawl out your ears bewteen meals

please try not to bite the spider in the middle of this

( my kids would try to make sure to EAT the spider)

TashNz said...

I'm the most uncreative thinker but have you explored the webbed fingers or toes, or green skin ideas? Warts on noses, webs on toes-es lol! That rhymes. Oh oh how about.

If you turn up your nose-es you'll get webbed toes-es! hahahaha

I just wanted to share the pain you feel about school lunches. My two are so different. One will eat jam sandwhiches till they look like one and the other REFUSES sandwhiches but will eat anything in a bread roll. One loves yoghurt, the other loves carrot sticks. One thing they will never turn their nose(es) up at is home made baking - even if I burn it. Good luck :)

TashNz said...

I'm the most uncreative thinker but have you explored the webbed fingers or toes, or green skin ideas? Warts on noses, webs on toes-es lol! That rhymes. Oh oh how about.

If you turn up your nose-es you'll get webbed toes-es! hahahaha

I just wanted to share the pain you feel about school lunches. My two are so different. One will eat jam sandwhiches till they look like one and the other REFUSES sandwhiches but will eat anything in a bread roll. One loves yoghurt, the other loves carrot sticks. One thing they will never turn their nose(es) up at is home made baking - even if I burn it. Good luck :)

Natalie Anderson said...

Oh my goodness you guys are amazing! I'm loving it - Marybelle that's awesome - loving the dusty eternal threats! And Pat - fantastic alliteration - i am SO showing him the illustrations of a Wyvern that I just googled - you're a star!
and guts out ears Blackroze37?That's goooooood!
And LOL TashNz - noses and toes-es is perfect! & Yeah, the liking different things can be such a drag - the only thing they agree on is chocolate! ;)

I am so using all of these!!! Brilliant!!!!!! :)

Desere said...

I am the eternatal mummy of foods sour and sweet, I command you to eat this or a sweet treat is what you will never again eat!

Very cool contest Natalie Your book sounds super!

Desere

TashNz said...

I forgot to say too that the book sounds great, a fresh and original storyline - cant wait to read it :)

Natalie Anderson said...

Thanks so much for your curses ladies!
Desere yours was fabulous too! :)

But I have to pick a winner and this time the book goes to Pat Cochran! Pat, can you please email me at natalie(at)natalie-anderson(dot)com and I can put it in the post for you!

Thanks so much for playing!
~Natalie