Busy, productive week

My friend finally came out of the hospital, and is on the way to recovery. So things are quieter, more stable in both our households.

I also feel like I’ve taken more control of my writing life. For the past week I’ve been attending a writing course at work called Writing on Deadline.

The course, run by Paula Fray and Associates, is usually taken over three full days, but it’s been customized for us to run over six afternoons.

I can’t give out the course details (I‘m sure the training company would have something to say about my giving away their intellectual property?), but I’m finding it very useful.

Among other things, I’m learning to assess the value of each story I’m taking on (is this a unique story I want to tell, does it push me ahead of the pack or just allow me to tick along) and assess my writing processes (how can I ease the pressure of writing to deadline, which are the most problematic steps in my writing process?)

Hopefully, you’ll see the impact of the course in the work I choose to do and the quality of the final product that gets published.