Romance Writers of Australia Conference

Back from Melbourne re-energised and inspired. It was a great conference at the wonderful Langham Hotel. Donald Maass was the keynote speaker and talked about writing what you fear the most. His talk, along with veteran romance writer Valerie Parv's workshop on creativity were the highlights of the conference for me.

I had a lightbulb moment about how punitive I have become in relation to my writing. As a beginning writer I take seriously advice about not waiting around for inspiration to strike. I get up at 5.30 in the morning and put myself in front of my computer with great resolve. But I haven't been allowing myself to play or dream. As a result, I've not understood why I've become progressively more and more discouraged. I don't finish projects because I don't allow myself some dreaming time with them. I feel like a burden has been lifted from my shoulders and I can enter into the life of my characters instead of seeing them as so many words that have to be produced.

So now I'm working on re-ordering my writing time to plan and play and fool around. This means reading more poetry, writing in my journal more often and interviewing my characters. Obvious things, but lost by me for a time.