Hello fellow Children’s Writers and Friends,

Half an hour, I have half an hour till I attend what promises to be an amazing Masterclass in The Duck Pond. I’m giving myself a self imposed deadline in an attempt to get a blog post written for the first time in a few months 😳 If this were the sort of blog where I could prepare blog posts in advance I would. I can’t, trust me I’ve tried.

Hindsight is a wonderful thing and so here’s a bit of advice if you’re starting a writing blog. Theme it on something other than the journey, which like the journey itself, can’t be known beforehand. It is experiential.

My current experience and the reason for the extended delay of this blog post is a mix of nothing happening and being aware of things happening. Things I have been involved in, in the past and had success with like the ZineWest competition and the WestWords/Westlit Libraries Living Stories Competition As well as this, preparation for things coming up like the WestWords Academy Alumni Presentation, which I should be getting my part ready for as it is coming soon- 27/4/22 to be exact! All welcome btw. I’ll put out a proper invitation on my socials later this week.

I’m currently on holiday from both of my day jobs, I took LWP from one of them with the aim of having a complete rest and the hope of starting some of these writing related pursuits. . . but alas, nothing. I even looked up my own previous post on paralysis in the hope of finding an answer, a plan, a way forward- nothing!

Now if you recall, this is my year of allowing myself, my creativity to lie fallow, so why am I even writing about this state of paralysis. Well, it’s because it’s new, different to last time. It’s not paralysis from overwhelm, but rather from not knowing how long and how much I should allow my creativity to lie fallow and how much I should exercise the ol’ writing muscle? Creativity is not dead incidentally, I have continued to dabble in a little art, which currently along with reading of course, is ‘my happy place’, no pressure you see.

Also so this doesn’t seem like a post completely about nothing, my time in fallow has produced a few gems of ideas, which I’m struggling to decide whether to write or percolate.

Percolating at the moment, but that’s not necessarily a decision I made, more of an allowing myself to trust. Trust in myself, trust in the process.

Wow, four minutes till the end of my half hour, just enough time to get set up! There’s something to take away fellow travellers, short, sudden self imposed deadlines seem to work! For me, today anyway 😀

Farewell fellow travellers,

Savour the quest,

Journeygirl