In These Days ...

These days find me consumed by a writing course that I'm doing ...

Consumed.  In a way that I haven't been since those rare occasions when school or uni were teaching me things that I was passionate about. 

Writing was my first love, closely followed by photography, way back in my childhood.  But it was writing that took most of my attention when I lived in New Zealand.  Then I flew, I was teacher for while, I wandered some, and I mostly misplaced my writing ... in one sense. 

In another way, blog-writing arrived and I started out on a different kind of writing.  One that I probably didn't really consider as 'writing' ... it occurs to me now, as I realise I have never stopped writing.  I only stopped writing that novel.  I only packed away my manuscript of interviews with climbers.  I only stopped the book-orientated writing.

But anyway, I am writing again.  I have book I want to finish soon.  It's complicated.  I almost made it simple but that would be silly.  I like complications ... why would I write a simple book. 

All that to say, if you're thinking you have a book in you, if you want to explore the whole process ... from the idea to the publishing (including all the tiny details along the way), then I highly recommend you take Christine Mason Miller's course, The Conscious Booksmith.

It's consuming, and fun, and satisfying, and exciting ... it contains all the elements of a damn fine adventure actually.

Oh!  And adventures.  I'm off road-tripping to France next week.  My Belgian bloke has surprised me with a small pilgrimage, in honour of one of my favourite New Zealand authors.  Really surprised and delighted me.

In July, I'm road-tripping, with Helen, to Italy.  Oh the adventures we have planned.  I shall be blogging that road-trip.

August is Norway and I can't tell you how much I'm looking forward to spending time with Ren.

For now ... it's all about waiting for this special couple's little girl to arrive in the world. And there a ballet performance and a poetry reading planned for tomorrow.  Dank u wel, to the lovely Ruth, who organises some of my best adventures here.

 

 

 

Christine Mason Miller - The Conscious Booksmith.

I'm teaching this course because I need it.

Christine Mason Miller,  talking of her e-course, The Conscious Booksmith.

I've signed up to do another workshop in the months ahead.  Like the marketing workshop, this one is absolutely vital for me to move forward into a world I know nothing about. 

And so when a woman I have been 'following' online for years, a woman whose work I love, and whose way of putting herself out into the world fills me with respect, offers a workshop on how to make my book real while fitting it into the flow of my own chaotic life ... then obviously I'm going to sign up.

It helps that it is affordable otherwise I might have been left at the window looking in like a kid longing to join but unable to.  But that's something else about Christine.  Her self-confessed mission is about 'Creating spaces, gatherings, businesses, communities, brands and containers that inspire healing, transformation, and stepping more fully into the truth of the world's relentless need for our unique voice in the world.'

In the months ahead, as I step into the flow with my photography workshops, I will also be hard at work on this book I've been dreaming about for years.  And while it has changed from 'all about me and that city I love' to being 'all about that city', it's an idea that has never disappeared.  Only altered and bloomed into something much more than I expected.  And I love what it is set on becoming.

If you are creating any kind of book, take a look at Christine's introduction to her course ...

The Conscious Booksmith: A Mindful Approach to Creating Your Book // with Christine Mason Miller from Animyst on Vimeo.