Updates

Busy weekend! Today, I taught at the Alexandra Centre (love teaching there–the course, Backstory Secrets, was extremely well-received and fun to teach!) went briefly to IFWA’s biannual writers retreat, the Write-Off (and amazingly, got some good work done), then this evening to the Rothney Astronomical Observatory to read aloud at their annual event. Not only fun, but I had a sale!

Writers retreats aren’t hard to create. A good friend runs one in his home every Thanksgiving long weekend, and I am privileged to be one of the invitees! Solved a plot problem at the gym (on the treadmill–dictated into my mini-tape recorder) and got good work done last night. Have another plot problem, but this one isn’t as tough and I have half the solution. Something to work on today.

Just came home from a style guide workshop with TWIG, through CAFE. Very interesting information, and the result was: I developed a style guide for my own editing.

I’ve noticed in a number of the courses I teach that I expect students to understand what a scene is, and they don’t always. So, I pitched a one-day “Basics of Scene Construction” course to the Alexandra Writers Centre, and Robin picked it up. I taught it today and it was great. I could easily have made it a two-day course, though for the material I had and the exercises and discussion. It was fun!

“Strangers Among Us” is going swimingly well. All the stories with any real edits are done except one, and there are just 5 left that may need a comma removed somewhere. Also, I have a client considering a novel editing contract for next month. Work is no problem. Kind of glad there weren’t enough students for the Alexandra Centre course this fall (though I had a cool teaching plan, so hopefully they’ll run it again another time)…but glad I have a 10 week course planned for after Christmas. As well as 4 weekend workshops!

AND…Calyx has accepted my art for their show on October 24!