Tuesday 7 April 2015

So much has changed - but not my writing

A lot has happened to me in the  past eighteen months. My wife died and I moved from my home on a remote property on the south coast, where I was becoming increasingly lonely and depressed, to a suburban lifestyle sharing a house with my daughter.
So much has changed, but one thing is constant - my writing. I have completed the first draft of my latest novel and I'm two thirds of the way through the first major edit. It will be ready soon to go to a writer friend to be critiqued. In some ways my writing was my salvation. By making myself sit down at the keyboard every morning (well, most mornings), I gave myself goals to work towards and an intellectual exercise to keep my mind what was causing me to be depressed.
There were days when I had to force myself to write and, in the rewriting process, it is very clear where that happened. The important thing is that there is a framework there, an on-going story line within which I can now improve the writing.
I have had to close the writers retreat but it was pleasant on those occasions where I did have writers in residence. Now I am working on the creation of a writers centre near my new home. An invitation to local writers to attend the launch later this month produced more than 30 responses so I am very hopeful it will be a success.