Nervous and excited

I'm feeling a bit jittery. It is a mixture of nerves and excitement. Tomorrow I'm headed to a place in Japan I've never been before, the Osaka area.

I'm nervous, like always, due to the 12 trains I need to catch to get there and back the next day, including an expensive shinkansen or bullet train. I'm nervous because this is the Writer's Workshop I've been nattering about periodically, for example here, and I'm teaching. I'm also nervous because it really is my baby, I've been the one who's done the majority of the organising; not that it is a huge deal, but I'm just not gifted at organising events like this.

It always seems to me as though Osaka/Kyoto etc. are south of
Tokyo, but really they are west and only a little bit south.

Here is a short run down on what we did when we held one in Tokyo earlier in the year. This time it is a couple of hours longer and it involves me teaching a little bit about how to write better.

I'm excited too, because I'm passionate about missionaries becoming better writers so that they can get their unique stories out there for others to benefit from.

Just yesterday I read a new submission of a writer who has an article coming out in our magazine this week. Her first article took a lot of work to get up to a good, publishable standard. The second one, that I read yesterday, is so much better. It really has to be one of the highlights of my week to see how she's learnt and improved in her writing because we as editors took the time to help her rework her article.

It is something that most magazine editors don't have the time to do. They just pick the most suitable and best written articles and go with them. In this small magazine, though, I do get the chance to help writers learn to write better. And that is, hopefully, what will come out of this week's writer's workshop too.

Anyway, now I'm dashing off down the road to help pack the Autumn issue of the magazine for posting. And that's always a good feeling — to lay my hands on the final product of many hours of work.

I'll have to pack my bags tonight. I'm catching a 5.08am train tomorrow, so I'd better not be late to bed. This editor needs her sleep.