Thursday, September 9, 2010

Revving up the engine

After my long hiatus, I’m back at writing with a vengeance.

It was only a matter of time, of course, but I never want to go through that ever again. I hope you never have to either.

It irked me when I could see all that time, energy and money spent on how-to books, and on-line classes, (I’m a workshop junkie), not to mention all the hours spent sitting at the computer writing into the night, disappearing down the plughole.

Happily, it’s all in the past.

In a concentrated effort on the part of the Universe, everything happened at once.

It began with the Romance Writers of New Zealand national conference when we hosted Christopher Vogler as one of our speakers. He conducted an all-day workshop and I’ll swear his carefully chosen words were written with me in mind. He certainly made me sit up and take notice.

Hard on the heels of the conference came an amazing workshop that really got my engine revving. Titled The Book Factory, if you ever get the chance to take part, I can’t recommend it highly enough. The teacher, Kerri Nelson, teaches you how to work on more than one book at a time, several in fact, have a clean and tidy house AND get some exercise. Just seeing what she juggles in her busy life is enough to make anyone want to lie down and have a rest till they feel better.

Thanks to that workshop, I’ve now fished out some manuscripts that have been languishing on my PC, and start working on them again—three at once, including Book One of my Egyptian trilogy. Woohoo!!!

The cherry on the top is a new contract. And I’ve just sent the first round edits off to my editor in good time

Now, what’s next?

Jean

6 comments:

Dawn Marie Hamilron said...

Good for you, Jean. Keep up the momentum. Good luck with the new stories!

Mona Risk said...

Glad you pulled yourself together and are writing again. Same thing happened to me a year ago, but I resolutely turned my back to blogs, emails, ...and started writing again.

Joan Leacott said...

Well done, Jean. Amazing what can suck the life out of your writing.

Josie said...

Very exciting, Jean. Both workshops sound fantastic. Sounds like just what you needed to rev up your writing engines.

Clarissa Southwick said...

Congratulations on the new contract, Jean!

Jill James said...

Jean, great to hear you are not only back on track, but steaming ahead.

I love workshops that just get your writing motor revving and excited to begin again.