Depression, Writers' Group Conferences and Board Positions, and Blogging Again

The last monthly Northwest Christian Writers' Association meeting of the 2015 - 2016 season is done and over.  We will start back up in SEP - come and join us if you are able.  The Writers' Renewal of 2016 has come and gone.  The 2017 Conference is already scheduled and speakers and events being planned.

I worked on doing some tech stuff at this year's conference, after my friend Mindy, the president of NCWA the last two years, called and asked me if I would be willing to come and try to help out.  Between trying to do the tech stuff I made it to two workshops, both by Ben Wolf, one on Speculative Fiction, and one on realistic fight scenes in your work.  More on how those workshops inspired me later.

My depression had caught up to me in an ugly way in OCT of 2014, and I walked out of that meeting, and skipped going to meetings for that season.  I returned to the meetings in SEP 2015 when we changed locations for the second time in 2 years, but only helped with tech stuff occasionally.  When she asked me to help out at the conference, Mindy also asked me if I was ready, willing, and able to return to the board.  And so after a 2 year sabbatical  I have indeed returned as Tech Coordinator.

In JAN I started taking Prozac, as well as thyroid meds, as low thyroid can be related to depression.  Those who know me well say they can see an improvement, and I feel like I'm doing better.  I just have to be careful to not try to over do it and bite off more than I can handle as I get back into the swing of things. 

Being on the Prozac helped me to start feeling better enough to want to start helping out at NCWA again, and so I was able to agree to both help at the conference, and to return to the board.  The meds are also helping with me getting more motivation to do write again, including blogging, hence this new blog post.

Another part of why I started trying to work on this blog is because as part of getting back on the board, Mindy asked me for a head-shot and I sent her the head-shot I am now using.

She told me "Very funny.  If you're not careful I'll post that on Facebook."  People should be careful of what they threaten me with.

It is again my Facebook profile pic, as well as the pic for this blog, and also for my website, my NCWA profile, and all my other social media profiles.  I may change it again in the future, but have no current plans to do so.  As writers we are told to develop a platform.  Well, since I've often been told that my writing is "dark," I figure this is an appropriate pic, and some of my friends that also write Spec Fic have said that with what I write it is an appropriate pic.

So that is why my going around to all my social media sites and changing my profile pic to the above started me looking at blogging again.

Writing is like exercising.  When you get back into it, you want to be able to do all the "lifts" you know you should have been doing.  And yet you need to make sure to work out enough to be ready later to do the heavy lifting.  And now I have to be careful to not overdo it too soon after getting back into it after such a long break away from it.  So that's all for this post.  I have plenty of material I've made notes on, so hopefully I will be posting more regularly, at least for awhile.