By NICOLE FERRIE

SHE is known to her readers as a quirky, colourful twenty-something mum in the naughties, but when 600 copies of Upbeat in Bendigo arrived this week, Lauren Mitchell was a different woman.
The words that usually flow so easily for Loz didn’t come;  she didn’t pop the kettle on to make a cup of tea and she waited patiently as box after box was unloaded and neatly stacked in a storage room.
The bubbly, energetic
woman was uncharacteristically anxious and reserved.
This was her moment.
The moment Lauren had been dreaming of for as long as she could remember.
So with a single tear in her eye and surrounded by a handful of close friends, Loz opened the first box, inhaled the beautiful scent of a new book, quickly checked for spelling errors on the cover and smiled.
It was perfect.
A collection of Lauren’s columns printed in the Bendigo Weekly have been compiled to form her first book, and bring to fruition a lifelong dream.
“I’ve wanted to write a book for as long as I could remember,” Lauren said.
“I was one of those kids who would always go to bed with a book ... I couldn’t get up in the morning because I spent all night reading.”
In the early years that love affair started with Robyn Klein.
Like most teenagers, Lauren grew up Hating Alison Ashley, and reading I Came Back to Show You I Could Fly along with Penny Pollard’s Diary.
“I loved the humour ... they were always about kids like me,” she said.
“I guess I related to Erica Yurkin in Hating Alison Ashley ... she was a misfit and didn’t really fit in, but her story was important all the same, it was worthy of a book.”
It was when Lauren opened her much-loved secondhand bookshop, Boldrewood Books, in Eaglehawk at the age of 24 that she discovered new and exciting authors such as Tim Winton and Peter Carey.
“I started reading authors others were asking for,” she said.
“Novels that were written like poetry which I valued as much for the words as I did for the story.”
But after two years, Lauren realised she no longer wanted to sell books: she wanted to be a name on the shelf.
What she didn’t know, however, was that her dream to become a published author was about to be realised.
Writing for the Eaglehawk Times quickly led to a position with the Bendigo Weekly, in which Lauren started writing Loz, an upbeat column about “an analogue girl in a digital world”.
It was quickly embraced by readers.
“I always felt like you had to be someone who had achieved great things or seen great things to have something to pass on to people,” she said.
“I’ve always felt like I’ve had the words but I haven’t had the stories.
“But the feedback about my columns, people saying thank you for doing that every week, still blows me away.
“I just write about every day things.”
Loz is happy to admit that “nobody is safe” when it comes to her column.
Many are inspired by friends and family, people she meets at check-outs and children.
“People often start their conversations with me by saying ‘don’t write about this, but ...’,” she said.
And while they’re often the most difficult to write, Lauren’s favourite columns are about people she is closest to.
“It’s a real responsibility when you write about someone else’s story,” she said.
“The biggest thing is when they say thank you, that just means everything.”
But for now, the thing that means most is Upbeat in Bendigo. ... and what comes next.
“I always hoped that when I had the book in my hand it would be the impetus for me to say what’s next on my list,” she said.
“There is no excuse now not to do something else.”