Life and Lifestyle... and success!

IN THE LAST FEW MONTHS I've been focused on improving my health as well as improving my craft as a writer. I've always loved walking but now running takes priority until I'm too puffed to continue, and then I walk. 10,000 steps the goal. It's good to be active, then come home for the bulk of the day in front of my keyboard, but those first few hours —which generally includes a coffee in the sun by the water — have set me up with life and colour and scents and snippets of people's conversation after which I'm ready to write in a quiet space.

Once again I joined a Freefall writers workshop for a richly immersive week of writing in community. Ordinarily these are run as a gorgeous residency in Daylesford, Victoria, but with COVID-19 we were participants via Zoom, supported with tea-and biscuit chats using the platform Slack. It was a superb week, challenging as ever, and took me far from my children's book writing and deep into exploring my personal stories of the last twenty years. Barbara Turner-Vesselago as our tutor —stuck in Canada, her home—was superb once again, inspiring and suggesting, guiding and offering insights into story, intent and craft. I recommend discovering the technique of Freefall writing to anyone keen to plumb the richness of their life through words. Kirsten Cameron from Love Street Writers was the Australian coordinator for Freefall and facilitator of the day's readings and discussion, and another three cheers for her. A shout-out to the incredible people in the workshop who trusted me with their stories too. A full week of feedback from a trusted crowd is a powerful thing, exhausting yes, but the benefits ripple out and out and out. 

I've had the delight today of updating my Awards And Commendations on my webpage!  I'm so proud. What an excellent year it's been for my career as a writer! To receive a WIN for a children's picture book manuscript is a hard-won success: Lily McGileagh's Colourful Ways has been written and rewritten from the inside out and upside down and back to front since March when I first invented her, a feisty little girl with very distinct ways. There's a lot of me in Lily! I won the prize for not just the story but for my ability to rhyme well and to work in metre (the beats/rhythm as you read aloud). Hip hip hoorah ;-) You can read a good chunk of the story on my homepage... HERE. 

Happiest of Christmases to each and every one of you! Take the time to doodle and dawdle, mix and muddle, concoct and create, and write! Ho Ho!

Deborah