Picking up the pen again by Jo Wanmer

    A couple of weeks ago, interested parties gathered from across Australia and New Zealand. We came together at the Caleb Conference to celebrate writing . It was fun. It was helpful and inspiring. (Wombats are pictured on the left)
     I, however, felt like a fraud. Was I really a writer? Does one award-winning, published book qualify me as a real author? These feelings reminded me of the first time I walked into an Omega Writers meeting. Or tried to walk in. At the door I couldn't enter. I retraced my steps to the car. How could I even think of walking into an author's meeting? Yes I'd typed 80,000 words. Did that mean I could walk through that door? Surely I'd be looked at strangely. 
    However I needed help and lots of it, so I turned and crept in. That was the beginning of loads of encouragement, massive learning, shared expertise, and the birth of a passion for quality writing. 
    Three years later again I fought the same feelings. I haven't written for over a year, except for blogs and a few articles. And I stopped blogging in May. Surely I have disqualified myself. However, as I had prepaid for the conference months earlier, my husband insisted. 'Go! You know you want to write more. You must not give up.'
    Yes, my daughter's circumstances have been difficult and family always comes first. My creative brain was swamped in a sea of medical drama and overwhelming tiredness. I had laid down the pen and walked away.
    Somehow, whilst listening to speakers, sitting in workshops, and praying with friends, my thinking balanced.I have had quite a few articles published. I am more than a freak flash in the pan, more than one amazing God story. That story was the initial impetus, the beginning.
Listening and learning, I came away inspired to write, to get my novel out of mothballs, to push on. A few days later a friend sent me this poster.

     So I am writing. This blog may not be well crafted, but it is here! I must write, write a little every day.
    As soon as I made that decision I was hit from behind my the same medical monster.Two consecutive nights I spent in an emergency department, supporting my granddaughter. Tiredness swamped me. Even today, after 10 hours sleep, my armchair calls me.  As I type, my fingers hit the wrong keys and the page is covered with red lines, highlighting my ineptness.
    At Caleb conference I learnt to stay in the creative brain. Editing is for later. So resisting the urge to silence red squiggles, I continue to drop random letters on the page.
So I have begun. Next an article, maybe a poem and then - watch out book, here I come.

Jo Wanmer writes from an untidy desk in Kallangur, Qld. Her Book 'Though the Bud  be Bruised' won the Caleb unpublished manuscript award in 2011. There are other books, both fiction and non-fiction racing around her head, looking for a way past the brain fag!