Euphoric about today

I've had a great day of writing. I love this — taking time away from my usual responsibilities to write is something gives me great joy.

This morning I taught a bit more about good writing, then at 11 we broke away to work on our own writing individually. I took an exercise break at 2, feeling the need to get my blood pumping a bit, but then came back to write until 4. Even though the time hasn't been an extended period, I'm really pleased at how much I've been able to achieve. 

I've now got seven 2-3 minute "stories" that can be built into talks to groups in Australia. After 4pm the other writers and I spent a couple of hours sharing small portions of our writing and getting feedback from one another.

This is the second favourite part of these workshops (the first being getting excited about writing all over again and having time to devote exclusively to it). I love giving missionaries the rare opportunity to get useful feedback from other missionaries about their work. It is something that most missionaries never get the chance to do. I am so thankful for my writing critique group, Truth Talk, for the honest, critical feedback they give me about my writing.

I've also edited an article about missionaries and loneliness that began as a blog post here nearly five years ago. This article I've rewritten twice in the past so that it would fit a couple of different magazines. Then today have edited it again to fit a different audience. I love re-fitting work I've done previously, it saves so much time!

I just realised that this blog turned five years old on Sunday. What an awesome journey. One of my goals in doing this blog it is to improve my writing, and I think I'm probably continuing to achieve that. I've certainly improved in my ability to take and idea and write about it quickly, and succinctly. That is a real benefit when it comes to writing other things, it means that I'm a more efficient writer.

So, I'm very excited and thankful for this day to immerse myself and others in writing. It is a largely solitary activity, but done like this with a group, it is very stimulating and even addictive. Tomorrow we're still writing and talking about writing until lunch time, and then there'll be quite a change in activities, but you'll have to wait until tomorrow's post to find out the details.