inspiration, Uncategorized

It All Starts Tomorrow

Today is the penultimate day of January, and I can almost say that tomorrow will be the first day of February, and that means it’s also the first day of February, and the first day of the month of creative writing prompts! I’ve been talking with members of my writing group about this, and the blog posts I’ve written about it, are on my Facebook page, and being read by some people.

I’ve put some links on my twitter accounts, and who knows how many people may have seen the information there. I’d like hundreds of people to be reading this blog post, obviously, but life isn’t like that – you have to work hard to get stuff like that happening in your life.

And my life is full of lots of different things, and I don’t have the time or the knowledge, understanding, or inclination to get all of those kinds of things done. In my ideal life, I’ll have a p/a, who will attend to the details, and I’ll be able to concentrate on the big picture stuff only. I’m not living that ideal life though.

Puss in Boots and I hape we all have a great creative month together, for February, with lots and lots of words written!

So I do what I can, what I want to do, what interests me the most, and what ‘floats my boat’. I get a huge kick out of inspiring other people to write, when they never realised creative writing was a skill they had. Giving feedback and encouragement taught me these things, and I’m grateful to the people who helled me in these ways. This February writing prompt idea is a way of giving to others.

Giving to others, helping them to write better, inspiring them to write, as a writer, of course I want others to write too, they’re my peers, and writers, are also readers, and of course writers and readers have a symbiotic relationship, giving to each other …

So the month of February will be a month of exploring ideas, writing on the new prompts I’ll be handing out, a new one every single day … And I’ve just today discovered that Writers’ Week starts in Adelaide, on the last day of this project, and that seems so appropriate to me, a month of new writing, ending with a great writing and listening and learning, as well as chat and schmoozing event, that brings together writers and readers from around the world, all getting together in the that little grassed space …

I’ll be there, for some of the event, not sure how many days, but at least two days, hopefully more. Writers Week always feels like I’m ‘one of the gang’ the gang of writers, sharing with others, and learning more and more about this writing world …

So this month of writing prompts starts tomorrow, the fun starts tomorrow (I hope!), and with luck, by the end of February, I may have enough poems for my next poetry collection! Or I may have a breakthrough and really truly get to work on my series of Cosy Murder Mysteries, or I may even turn the first draft of the novel I’ve written into the second draft, and have begun giving it to readers to make it into a publishable book, perhaps! You never know what might happen, when inspiration is in the room!

So I hope you’re feeling inspired for February to bring good writing, as I am, buckle in and be preapared to write and write and write!

New Ideas

A Literary Yard Sale?

Sometimes I get ideas, you know … And as a writer, getting ideas is a good thing, yes? Well, up to a point certainly, but what if the idea is taking away from writing time, of more truly is distracting the writer from writing.

That is what is happening to me at the moment. I had a great idea, or at least one that seems like a great idea, a community building idea, and I have been working hard on this idea for the past week or so, and I haven’t been doing much in the way of actual novel writing.

So today, whilst in the middle of promoting my ‘great idea’ I had a brilliant idea – I would hold a reading of my published words at the event that is my ‘great idea’, and it may be the first time such a thing has ever happened. I could be wrong on that one, but I can probably truthfully say it hasn’t ever happened where I live.

This ‘great idea’ I’ve been working on is a Township wide yard sale, where as many houses in my township set up a stall and sell things from their own yard. I’m hoping for at least ten households will get involved, because that would mean the local Primary School will get fifty dollars from the fee to take part. If every household got involved, wow, that would be awesome, there are at least forty households in Redbanks, where I live.

So forty households times five dollars that’s two hundred dollars to the school. Not a bad donation … My little township, while a nice place to live, is lacking in any real feeling of being a connected community. Small groups of people are friends, but there isn’t anything everyone there is interested in.

Could this yard sale that takes in all of the township be the catalyst for bigger and better times for Redbanks? Who knows? I just know that if it does happen, I played a part in it, and that feels like a good thing to have spent my time doing. And hey, maybe I will sell some copies of my own books, and get to sign copies for the buyer/s, that would be a great thing!

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