How lucky was I to get away for a couple of days this week to write! And the sun shone too!
Better even still, I managed to make good progress on a writing project during the week when I was away. Walks on the beach helped blow away cobwebs and gave me thinking time to mull over some plot lines and characters.
It's good taking time out to get headspace. While there's still much work to do on the project, I managed to make substantial progress.
Recipe for a perfect Saturday:
1. Start the day with some home baking. Add in meeting up with friends who'll appreciate them - ✔
Chocanana muffins baked and enjoyed with friends over coffee & creative chat.
2. Make the most of seaside sunshine - ✔
Coney was at it's best, beach activity taking place under brilliant blue skies while we did some writing exercises.
3. Take time to relax outdoors - ✔
Time spent in the garden catching up on reading while enjoying the sights, scents and sounds of spring.
4. Repeat as soon as possible!
I've learned I seem to be a seasonal writer, with more productive outputs over the longer, darker winter months. Once the sun begins to shine, I'm distracted by the garden. Over the long weekend the weather has been glorious and I've been tempted outside quite a lot. There has been some work done in the garden - by work, I mean gardening - strimming, weeding, mowing, planning and planting.
But I've also had the luxury of some time to rest and enjoy catching up on reading in the garden accompanied by bees buzzing and boastful birdsong.
Despite receiving a few rejections in recent weeks and some writing related plans not going quite as planned, I've been working on some new projects. Most of them will need strimming, weeding, mowing, planning and planting.
And inspired by gardeners with 'Writing Gardens' (especially Monty Don), I’ve recently introduced some writing inspiration to my garden. While you could fit my garden into Longmeadow several times over, I'm hoping that under the bard's watchful eye writer's block will become a thing of the past and that I'll be inspired to write outdoors more over the summer months.
Football is not my thing, never has been and never will be, but that didn't stop me enjoying a football themed book launch last night. Along with some writing friends we gathered at the Crescent Arts Centre in Belfast to help Jenny Ireland launch her third YA novel 'Matched Up' out into the world.
With some of the audience sporting football shirts, football partyware, delicious sweet treats and goodie bags we were spoiled!
It was a lovely relaxed event with the coolest of music and included Jenny reading from her new novel. I was delighted to get my copy of the book signed and touched to see our gang of writing pals included in the acknowledgements.
Writing can be a slow and solitary process so it's great to build connections and support networks to keep encouraging and motivating each other when things don't go to plan. And it's such a joy to be able to celebrate our writing pals' successes at events like this.
It was a lovely end to a good writing day, which had started out with squeezing in some time to write out in the garden in the morning.
It felt like a summer's day down at Coney yesterday, with the sun shining, brilliant blue skies and litter pickers tidying the beach.
And it reminded me of many happy summer days we've had there. It’s been a while since we've all been together, with a lot happening so we had much to catch up on and talk about.
With the sun warming our backs we spent a lovely morning talking over coffee and chocolate and banana muffins, shared some of our work and some of our plans, (some of which are very exciting!) and we also did a writing exercise.
And inspired by the morning, the theme continued in the afternoon back home in the garden when I caught up on some reading.
In the last couple of weeks, a couple of projects that have been in the planning phase for a while finally came to life.
Last year I was invited to take part in a project with Mid and East Antrim Council during Democracy Week where local schools vote for 'Top Children's Author'. Democracy week took place a couple of weeks ago, coinciding with World Book Day.
This project was a fun way to teach young people about elections with the children reading our manifesto, voting and then taking part in the counting.
Thanks to everyone who voted for me, on this my first foray into elections and congratulations to the winner, Paddy Donnelly. I'm pleased to say I didn't lose any deposit in this election.
Yesterday I had a busy day in Belfast in the company of children's illustrators and writers. On the way into town on the train I managed to get a bit of writing done.
In the morning we had a good turn out at our local SCBWI Ireland meet up over coffee. It was good to catch up with other creatives and hear how their projects are progressing. It's always inspiring being in the company of other writers and illustrators.
In the afternoon we held a SCBWI Ireland in-person writing workshop at the Seamus Heaney centre at Queen's University.
I'd been working with Shirley McMillan, current NI Children's Writing Fellow over recent weeks planning this so I was very excited to see these plans come to fruition.
We had a great afternoon sharing and learning new tips and there was also time for a practical exercise writing a synopsis for a MG or YA novel. It was great fun, productive and a very enjoyable way to spend the afternoon.
I'm still buzzing from the creative sparks ignited at both events yesterday. And it's always a bonus to pick up a free book.
Now to get on with a new project - yesterday's acquisition may just come in very handy.....
It's been a busy few days with lots of exciting writing activities taking place. Over the weekend I went along to a couple of events in the Look North festival. The first one was a children's writing workshop with Shirley McMillan. It was good to meet other writers there and during writing exercises develop a nugget that could be revisited.
While I missed the main launch of the Translink and Ulster University's 'Poetry in Motion' anthology a couple of weeks ago, I managed to pick up my copy last week and enjoyed dipping into it on the journey home.
Over the weekend I managed to get along to a poetry reading in York Street station where some of the organisers shared contributors' work. It was a lovely event - drinking coffee while being read poetry.
Last night we held another SCBWI Ireland 'Picture This, Write Now' session. It's good to make some time to write and doing this and chatting with other writers across Ireland provides each other with encouragement.
Over the last few days, between rejections I've also received news of an exciting new project I'm going to be involved in - more about that in due course.
In the meantime I've been doing some spring cleaning and tidying in preparation for World Book Day later this week.
Have a good one when it arrives!
