Blinding Insight

You know how, in that magical moment of time just before you fall asleep, you suddenly think of the most incredible plot developments and dialogue? Or you get a sudden insight into something and with your half-asleep brain wonder if you'll remember it in the morning?
I had an incredible lightbulb moment at 1am this morning.

My brother and I are very different people. With an age gap of 5 years, living half a world apart, him being male and me female, and him having a Doctorate in Quantum Physics and me being a university drop-out, on the surface we have very little in common. But there are odd moments when you can tell we were raised by the same parents.

My brother is President of Software Freedom International, a non-profit organisation that promotes free software for all. I'm virtually computer illiterate so you might be wondering how this shows how alike we are ... I'm getting there. I will make the point eventually ...

I am a great believer in giving people access to information, and nurturing and developing people. This is one of the reasons why I love eHarlequin and the romance writing community in general. There are so many great writers who give back to their community. However, I live in a country where writing is a very solitary occupation. There are no organisations to join, no conferences to attend, and very little in the way of support or encouragement. To the best of my knowledge, there is one company that provides writing workshops - but they do it solely as a business and their fees are steep.

So if my brother can make the effort to bring free software to developing nations, I think I can make the effort to make information and support available to all romance writers in this developing nation.

Do you belong to any form of writing association? What benefits do you make most use of and what features would you most want from a writing organisation?

RNA Conference

With great reluctance I've finally decided that I won't be going to this year's RNA conference in Cumbria. I was really excited about going, especially as I'd planned to couple it with my sister-in-law's birthday party and a visit with my oldest and dearest friend.

But as much as I really want to go, even I have to admit it would be supremely selfish of me to leave my kids for yet another 10 days, having already been away from them twice this year for work.

I keep reminding myself that there will be another conference next year. And my dearest friend will be visiting South Africa in June for the Lions tour, so I won't be missing too much. I will just have to satisfy my curiosity by devouring every blog post I can find by anyone who attends this year's conference (hint, hint).