When I was working as a freelance lecturer I found that keeping contact with other professionals in my area of business was essential a) to ground me in what was happening in the larger health and care world and b) to maintain my sanity! For all the pro's of being self employed, a definite con can be the isolation often involved. Writing, I have found, can have a similar profile - but I have learnt from my previous experience how to deal with it.
My writers group Somewhere Else is excellent on a regular basis but I try to occasionally link up with other writers too for a breadth of vision and to find out what else is going on in the local scene. Once a month I go to Writers in the Brewery in Cirencester; it welcomes a variety of invited writers to read and discuss their work and provides a platform for others with an open mic session. It runs on the last Thursday evening of most months of the year.
This morning the Catchword group held their annual coffee morning with writers from all over Gloucestershire invited. It was hot, noisy and great fun - and the cakes (especially Sarah's raspberry and almond one) were fantastic! Great to hear about other people's projects, publications and proposals. Wilkie Martin's first comic crime novel "Inspector Hobbes and the Blood" comes out on Friday. Great excitement there! And I could share the news of my competition win earlier this week. My short story L'Ermitage has won the Onward Short Story prize in aid of the Theatre Royal in Hyde (and should be on the website shortly). After entering an awful lot of competitions with no joy at all and a few with modest success, that certainly made my week!
(If you are interested, my story The Journey, which won third prize in the Curry Mallet History Festival competition, can be read here (scroll down to 3rd Prize!))
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