Blogging, Conferences, Encouragement, Energy, Balance, and Therapy

I started back up on this blogging thing shortly after the NCWA 2016 Writers' Renewal Conference wrapped up in MAY, and then finally made my first recent post shortly after the last monthly meeting of the season in JUN.

Here it is OCT and we had our first meeting of the new year just shy of a fortnight after my SEP 1 post, and we will have our next meeting two days hence. 

After finishing Starving Artist for the AUG post I took some time off and worked on sorting my YouTube drawing video collection.  It took me about 2 weeks of on-again, off-again writing to finish up the SEP article, and then start this OCT article.  Even then I still continued to collect and organize even more drawing videos according to topic so I can better use the videos for future references as I continue this exploration of again trying to learn to draw. 

Finishing the SEP article early, and starting this article well ahead of time, encourages me to believe I can actually get a cache of articles stored up for future posts, rather than constantly struggling to get a post out by the first of each month, especially like the AUG Starving Artist post.  In fact I'm encouraged that I may be able to actually start working on my Spec Fic again soon.

I also get a lot of encouragement from my writing friends at NCWA by just being around them at our monthly meetings, and seeing other friends scattered across the internet, via Facebook, and seeing all their successes.

Several friends have won or been finalists in various contests.  The Realm Makers 2016 conference was JUL 28 - 30, and my NCWA friend Kim won the debut author award for her YA novel Into the Fire .

Oregon Christian Writers had their conference AUG 15-18, right after I started on this post, and NCWA friend Kathleen won Unpublished Historical Fiction for her book Children of the Revolution.  Also 2016 NCWA Writers' Renewal Conference speaker Ben Wolf won Published Children’s Book for his book I’d Punch a Lion in the Eye For You.

Congratulations to these three, and to all the other winners, and to my other friends who were finalists, and all the finalists.  Well done all.

Meeting new Spec Fic writing friends at the 2016 NCWA conference and was also a big encouragement to me.  Ben Wolf had mentioned that Realm Makers was wanting to do something on the west coast for their 5th year anniversary conference in 2017, and so all of us at the NCWA conference were hoping Realm Makers would be here in Seattle.  But alas, next year's Realm Makers conference is in Reno, NV., I have no idea how I'm going to make it, but sure would like to go and meet more of my online Spec Fic friends. 

It was around MAR, after about three months being on Prozac, when my blogging adventure was indirectly revitalized when I agreed to help out at the 2016 conference, which so greatly encouraged me to have made it through that experience.

It was that same time I also agreed to rejoin the board doing the AV support once again, the position I originally took on 7 years ago when I volunteered in SEP 2009.  The position I walked out of during the OCT of 2014 monthly meeting.  After that I took a year off from attending meetings, and took 2 years off from being on the board, after having done the AV / Tech support as a board member since Spring of 2012, and as early as SEP 2009 before it was a board position. 

It was only when our meetings moved out of Kirkland, to a more convenient location that I started attending again.  And on occasion they asked me to sub for the guy who was doing the AV stuff that year, which I suppose helped prep me to take on being in the position full-time again.  Right now though, at the end of AUG, as I write this, fighting my way through trying to get ready for the 1st meeting of the year in 12 days I  feel like an impostor.  I am hoping the energy from attending the conference will stay with me a bit longer, and help me as I try once again to organize my thoughts to get through making the Power Point slides for SEP's meeting, and that this blog will keep me headed in the "write" direction for getting things done.

Working on this blog, rejoining the board, my renewed interest in drawing, my Spec Fic writing, and my figuring out what to do with tutoring math and computer programming is requiring me to work out finding the right balance.

And in the spirit of balance, I have to balance out how long to make these posts, and I think we've come to the end of another installment.

Not only is writing this blog, getting posts out on a regular basis, even if only once a month at this point, and getting articles done ahead of time an encouragement, so are the comments you give me, both here on my posts, as well as on Facebook.  So thank you for reading and commenting.