Conference season

It’s the blog conference season – and I’m not going to any of them this year.

It’s not that I am intrinsically anti-social (though frankly I am a bit). I’ve been before, and quite enjoyed the bustle – and the hustle. It’s fun to put names to posts, to meet old blogging friends and make new connections. But I’m just not feeling it this year.

It’s partly that I’m struggling to keep up to date with other things. I’m currently editing the first draft of my whodunnit. Editing is a special kind of hellish seesaw, where you veer from finding the odd sentence that shines, to discovering whole pages that are utter rubbish. It’s awful striking out chunks that you remember, all too well, cobbling together in the hope that in a good light, on a good day, they might somehow pass muster. They don’t. William Faulkner was right, you must kill your darlings – but it hurts.

I’ve also got other paid projects on the go, which always remind me that the novel-writing and the blogging are speculative and self-indulgent, though they often seem to be the real point.

And I have all the other stuff that I neglect constantly and feel guilty about. The washing. The family. That stuff.

Something’s got to give, and it’s the blogging conferences. But you go, have fun – and tell me all about them.

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