Boundless on writing + heading south

Over the past week-and-a-half, the folks at Boundless have been running a feature on writing. The articles, just like everything else that appears at Boundless, are concise, snappy, and challenging. If you are interested in writing even in a very small way, you'll be able to take something away with you from your reading.

• Jen Schroedel's A Moment to Write talks about the actual doing of writing. Set yourself up with the right tools and action plan, and then you're away.
• My cousin and writing buddy will tell you that writing without inspiration is something that I rabbit on about a lot. For a while now, I've been of the opinion that inspiration will get you started, but you really have to apply seat of pants to chair and fingers to keyboard if you want to finish. Susie Shellenberger, author of 47 books (she knows what she's talking about) discusses how necessary inspiration truly is, and how we can manufacture a little of it ourselves, in Writing Without Inspiration.
• I'm yet to read this week's other writing articles on Boundless, Writing by the Book and On Writing, but I've printed them out to take with me on the road trip I'm heading on tomorrow. I'd love to discuss what ideas and thoughts these articles generate for you. Feel free to discuss! I love talking about writing nearly as much as I love doing it, but the talking is far easier.

The road trip is southwards, over a long weekend, to see my sister and brother-in-law and the world's greatest niece (Tegan might fight me on this one). Ostensibly, the reason behind the trip is for the wee girl's first birthday party, but we all know that in another year or two she won't remember this one. Nevertheless, it serves as a good excuse to travel down and see the work that's been done on the new-old house, to cuddle the baby and be amazed at how much she's changed in the last three months. With little ones of this age, three months may just as well be three years, they grow and change and develop so much personality. My sister tells me I will like her teeth (baby's, not my sister's), of which she now has four, two each top and bottom. And there is a gap between the top two, just like her mama's.

We've been told to pack warm clothes, because it's cool down there at the moment as it nears the end of Autumn. Only problem is after two years of living on the West Australian coast and one year in Queensland, I've forgotten what warm clothes are. I have a feeling this weekend will remind me.

A trip that involves a car and more than two hours of driving means books! This time I'm taking with me Edith Pargeter's The Heaven Tree (delicious historical fiction) and Agatha Christie's Postern of Fate which arrived, a pre-loved hardback with a red dustcover, delightfully unexpectedly in the mail on Monday morning -- a treat from a book-loving friend in Kansas. I'm also packing Barbara Hughes' Disciplines of a Godly Woman and a large mound of letters from patient penpals meekly waiting for replies. 2008 has been a bad year for correspondence so far but I'm hoping hoping hoping it doesn't remain so. Perhaps over all those miles I can at least make a start on some draft letters (bumpy roads are too messy to avoid drafts). Oh, and I'm packing my journal, too -- also long neglected. My plans for accomplishment might be slightly amibitious...

I hope your weekend is as lovely as the one I'm contemplating.

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conversations:

Tegan -- thank you for your warm words and welcomes back to the blogosphere :).

Narelle -- the Queen is never late? Regal indeed! I will take that as a compliment. The fact that you have no Googleganger to gang with is goodle. It's grand, even. That way, your fame is all your own, you see!

Bethany -- an e-twin who writes children's books is rather fun! I hope she's a good author :).

ASourceofJoy -- ::grin:: Any excuse to worm my way into Google's search engines! Well no, not really; that wasn't the entire motivation, but it was a fun experiment all the same...