Every day I find more and more links to writers and writing related sites. Wish I had thought of this searching a few years ago. But then, blogging is fairly new, and even the .com’s have journals as part of their site or allow links to journals at least. Online forums are another great way to stay in touch with like-minded individuals who can spur each other on with praise and criticism to make writing an ongoing project. While it may take up much of my time in the research and that means I’m not doing creative writing myself, I know that what this means for my own future, and for that of others I hope, is a constant source of inspiration once the links are set in place on Spinning, Garmhos, or in my own list of Bookmarked sites (not to worry, I’m sharing all the best ones with you!).
It seems that most of us get all fired up around a course or seminar and then tend to slack off once that’s over and done and creative efforts fall back behind life’s other demands in our routine until writing becomes sporadic at best, willed back to the surface on the words, “How’s that book coming?” Guilt then becomes the stimulus, and while I don’t think that’s a bad thing—I for one am grateful to it as a primary driving force in my life—it’s a danger of becoming a “hafta do” instead of a “wanna do”.
We all can set our own limits on how much time we put into our craft every day, week or month. But the most important thing I’m finding out is that it’s necessary to keep the gold ring in our sights at all times, and when the time is right, reach out, grab it, and go for another ride on the merry-go-round. Hope I can provide the gold ring here and on Garmhos for all of us to hang onto.
The Lost Children: A Charity Anthology