The Workshop

After a year of lockdowns, shut downs, cancellations and postponements, finally, the Memoir Workshop was taking place. 

Having spent the bulk of the last 18 months in my flat, going nowhere, it was a bit exciting to get up and dressed on a Saturday morning. It felt strange not be wearing trackie dacks, ugg boots and to have the hair not shoved in a pony tail. Taking  some inspiration from Wednesday Addams, and being a mild day, my favourite little black dress, stripy tights and Doc Martens - and strangely, I felt wonderful. The acts of dressing for an occasion, applying a little makeup for the first time in weeks, and having to get myself over to Carlton for ten'o'clock was all part of the fun. 

The Carlton thing was the biggest irritation - I'm not a fan of Carlton, mostly due to the availability of parking. Thankfully, I found a decent park a few streets from La Luna Bistro. Decent, in that it was a four hour park. The workshop was due to run six hours. Worth the risk of getting a ticket. Thankfully none was to come. 

Spending a day talking about Memoir with Jenny Valentish and Catherine Deveny was wonderful. As  somebody with 90000 words of a pseudo-memoir in a file somewhere, it was an opportunity to get the skinny on the joys and pratfalls of writing a memoir. As somebody who reads some, but not a lot of memoir it was a good overview of what is out there, the process and some of the challenges this type of writing throws at you. Came away with a lot to think about. Also was thrilled that one of the exercises helped me to find away through a  problem.

But if I'm really honest, the best thing about the workshop was the ability to be sitting in a room with ten other people who also have aspirations of writing. Having lunch in the room, and tea and coffee meant that we'd have to take our masks off in each others' presence anyway. We were all checked in. The question was asked. We were all vaccinated either fully, or in part. And the relief of being able to sit around with a coffee and a notepad and just be, like we used to, back before this stupid disease made everything weird and strange and hard was the best thing of all. 

Today's Song: 

Today's Cards: 

The Enchanted Map:  Wishing Well

Archetype Card:  Warrior

Cards Against Humanity: It's a pity that kids these days are all getting involved with ...Christopher Walken.