Creative Workshop - Mid Way Review

So hard to believe we're half way there already! I knew at the outset I wouldn't be able to put in the amount of time and commitment the workshop deserved, and that's certainly been the case, but I've still managed to get into a better pattern of writing than I have been in since moving house, which destroyed so many of my routines.

To bring you up to speed with the past week, first: as well as working weekends I had an exam on Friday (and no, I don't speculate on how these things went until I have the result back) so it was not my most productive writing week, but I decided I wanted to produce something so came up with a 200 word piece of flash about a pregnant woman on the Devonport ferry remembering an incident from her childhood. Not my best work, but good to have something.

Looking back over the workshop, there are really two pieces I want to put serious work into; one is a fantasy story, based in a far future Wellington where some humans have evolved to the point where they can leave their corporeal bodies and exist only as light, and what happens when refugees from the old world turn up. The second is my first story of the middle block, about a woman visiting her former homestay student in Japan. That's not to say that I won't edit any of the others, but those are the ones grabbing me at the moment, and I hope there will be more.

This week I'm working on a (sort of) coming of age story centered round a fountain in Berlin. Another place I can easily visualise, which is helping the description but I'm still struggling with my main issue with non-genre fiction, formulating a clear plot. Then there's just one more story after this and I'm on to the last block, which will probably be the hardest.

Probably the main things I have gained from the workshop have been getting a sense of routine back, and connecting with a bunch more people - though the latter has been something of a mixed blessing as I've been struggling to keep up with blogs, and all my good intentions about regular commenting have gone to the wind. The end of the workshop will be a good chance to narrow down the blogs I follow, and then make a concerted effort to interact with those bloggers. I also want to move out of the rut I'm stuck in with my own blog; my obsessions with preserving my privacy and not injecting too much of myself into a public place have resulted in my blogging being rather stilted, and I need to find a happy medium.

As to the main point of the workshop, finding new ideas, they haven't been coming as well as I'd hoped, which I think is more to do with me being overwhelmed by life stuff and finding it hard to break out and take a fresh look at things, but having the themed goals has certainly helped. My life is a little quieter (though there is the small matter of that anthology... watch this space for an announcement very soon...) so maybe I'll steam ahead with all kinds of new ideas.