This afternoon I’m taking a workshop at a “Festival of Words”. I’ve only had a few days to prepare for it (3 and a half to be precise – Thursday was already taken with something else) because I’m a “fill-in”. My friend was scheduled to take it but, at the last minute, she had to be somewhere else and so she passed the baton on to me. When she first asked me, I was excited. It’s been a while since I’ve done this, so I thought, “FABULOUS!”

In my initial excitement I thought the workshop was for beginners on the basic things you need to know and do, when beginning your writing “career”. This is a subject I’d led other workshops on, so I thought it would be a piece of cake. It took a whole day and a half for me to realise my mistake; valuable time gone straight down the toilet. Turns out it’s about creating memorable characters and scenes. Oh. Flipping. Heck. (Note to self: Pay better attention!)

Now it’s the morning of the day and I’m feeling a bit queasy. I’m sure I don’t have enough material to fill in an hour and a half. I’ve got some writing exercises for the group to do, to break up the monotony of listening to me, but even so I don’t think they’ll stretch the time enough. There’s so much one can say about developing characters, and writing scenes that work and are interesting while moving the story forward, so why can’t I think of them?!!!!  I so want to give the attendees value for their money.

There’s one good thing about preparing for this thing: it’s made me rethink my current projects. Hopefully this will mean I’ll do a better job with them. On the down side, I had to keep telling my brain to focus on the job at hand instead of wandering the corridors of Seddon, or traipsing along behind John Sage while he searches for the missing Rainbird family.

My brain is spinning in all sorts of directions, most of them not helpful. I guess it’s because it’s been such a short preparation time. Or, it could be because I’m a bit ditzy. (There’s a certain amount of evidence in that theory’s favour.) On the plus side, there’s always the possibility that at the last minute, while I’m talking, fresh ideas will suddenly spin into view. It’s happened before.

The Festival will be well under way by the time I get there, so here’s hoping the people in my workshop have imbibed a few happy beverages over lunch and are feeling mellow.