Wednesday, July 08, 2009

My Writing Clinic

 

Last week was not super; life-stuff did not flow well. A friend labels July as The If It Will Happen, It Will Go Wrong in July.

Now none of the life-stuff was illness or a disaster, but coping with what has to be done, car maintenance/home appliances (not happy about energy saver refrigerators at this point), etc. But every day was packed and planned to the max.

The best thing, and I felt very good about this, was my pop-up free writing clinic.

Pop-up, because my car needed a half-days work. Free writing clinic, because I wanted to do something to help those writers who cannot travel to conferences and/or cannot afford them.

A free library room, good coffee, and 4 hours flew by in a basic Q&A session. I came away feeling very good.

In my current schedule, I am not planning future events, but writing heavily and doing some life-stuff. See my other blog, The Second Cup and My Jam Jar to see more about those things.

But I'm back to writing now and still feeling good about what I could do in those 4 hours. Positive feedback was really satisfying.

I wonder how many realize that writing is a profession, a storyteller talent, a love, but also a hand-me-down craft. Writers usually give back somehow and while I was not a member of RWA or any writing group until after I'd published maybe 5 books, there were published writers along the way who helped.

IMHO, Q&As are of the most benefit, so I led with a few basics and questions followed. It was a good exercise and I'd worked very hard on the handout, so I hope they are using that now :)
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2 comments:

Shirley said...

You SHOULD feel good, Cait. Aspiring writers always have questions for successful writers. I've heard from others who wished they could have been there, but want to be notified when you do another.

I learned a lot. Now I'm putting some to use today.

Cait London said...

I'm glad. So many times handouts are not used or researched. That one took a lot of work.