It’s been a mixed bag of writing ups and downs.

On Saturday I had the pleasure of attending Writers Victoria’s Regional Ambassadors Forum. The forum looked at ways WV can increase opportunities for accessing quality events and resources for writers in regional areas in our state. Although I only live a couple of hours from the city, I do, at times, feel disconnected from the buzz that the WV program generates in terms of weekly writerly events.

The forum was a great way to share the limitations we face. But it also proved a great inspiration as we talked about the many resourceful ways in which other regionally-based writers and writers groups work. I hope that, as a regional ambassador, I can be the link between WV and Gippsland and will be able to facilitate opportunities  for my fellow writers to access more of what we need, what we like and what will help further our writing careers.

Bonus – it looks like me and a fellow Gippsland writer, whom I met at the event, will be setting up a writers group in our region. Lots of work ahead but it will be great for our professional development!

Double bonus – I wrote a micro fiction on the train to Melbourne for a competition. Haven’t done one of those for ages!

In other writing news, I received a not entirely unexpected rejection from a publisher for my novel. A jolt of disappointment, a little bit of cursing and a lot of ‘oh well’s later, and I’m ready to pitch it to the next one…

I also had an interesting challenge for work this week where I was asked to write a speech on a subject I knew nothing about, to be delivered by a person I scarcely know. I did the only thing I knew how to do: turned that person into a character and let the character tell me what was important for the speech. The methods of writing, whatever the content, are often the same.