March is here, so I better reflect on the month that was February.
In short it was fantastic. I attribute most of that feeling to my new weekday 5am wake-up habit. It was a busy month; three out of the four weekends we were away. Usually that would unsettle me and make me feel off kilter - like I’m not get
ting enough time to myself. But, because I’m getting my early morning weekday time, it all felt manageable. I managed to maintain a feeling of wellbeing and balance. I’m really proud of that.
The month kicked off with a long weekend, which I spent in the most luxurious of ways, doing nothing but reading in the sunshine. That’s how it took just days for me to devour the ARC copy of Sophie Kinsella’s ‘The Burnout’ I discovered the month prior, at my mother-in-law's house.
I sat down to six separate writing sessions totaling four and a half hours this month, netting me 1,173 words. I’m very happy to report, two of my writing sessions were second sessions in the same morning! Having showered and gotten ready for my full time job, I found I still had some time to pop a few more words on the page.
All that writing happened before the 13th of February, which is when the Pro Writing Aid Romance Writers week was scheduled to start for us one-day-ahead Southern Hemisphere dwellers. That was my cue to turn my focus from word count to personal development for the rest of the month.
I reduced my writing goals this month and gave myself permission to focus on my craft instead. I cannot tell you how much I was looking forward to the PWA event. I learnt so much from the first PWA week last time (October 2022) and I couldn’t wait to see how I was tracking. What did I still not know? What bombshell of information would I get this time that would rock my writing development?
In total I watched ten different sessions, which I have listed below in order of how I watched them.
I managed to get to two and a half live.
‘Write Way Better Scenes’ presented by Pages & Platform’s Anne Hawley and Rachelle Ramirez
‘Writing Interiority: How to Show Your Character’s Inner Life on the Page’ presented by Savannah Gilbo - who I knew prior to this session as she has a wonderful podcast which is a fantastic starting place for any new writer.
And over my lunch break I managed to get a glimpse at CEO of Fictionary, Kristina Stanley’s ‘The Romance Writer’s Guide to Effective Story Editing’. Which (now I think about it) was one of two ‘infomercial’ type sessions - blatantly selling developmental editing services. But, it was also… hands down the bombshell session for me, with so many things clicking into place and making so much more sense with Kristina sharing her writer wisdom.
PWA kindly enabled free loaders (like myself) to access the recordings of the sessions up until the 1st of March. This meant I dedicated all my usual morning writing time to studying the following recordings and learning as much as I could before my temporary access was taken away.4. ‘Romantic Suspense: How to Create Satisfying Twists When the HEA is a Given’ presented by Samantha Skal
5. ‘Understanding Scene’ presented by Julie Artz
6. ‘In Conversation with the Romantic Novelists’ Association’ presented by Virginia Heath, Sue Moorecroft, Frances Mensah Williams, Carrie Elks, and Laila Rafi.
7. ‘Narrative Heartbeats: Enhancing Romance Writing with Generative AI’ presented by Melle Amade.
8. ‘Grow Your Brand and your Bank Account in 2024 with Direct Sales’ (a Lulu infomercial - but still informative) presented by Chelsea Bennet
9. Tent Pole Revision Process - Using Five Key Scenes to Revise Your Draft’ presented by Rona Gofstein. This session came a close second to the Fictionary session, Rona was a fountain of wisdom and set out a fantastic framework to support developmental self-editing.
10. ‘Sensory Writing for Romance Writers’ presented by Sacha Black was the last one I watched. Sacha was the other presenter I already knew of, via her Rebel Author Podcast, which I have referenced several times in my posts here, she has taught me a lot.
I wrote a ton of notes from each session and plan to share my favourite epiphanies in a special series of PWA Writers Week ‘Things I’ve learnt about writing…’ Instagram posts, so look out for those!
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