It was when I reached the motorway, switched on the cruise control and turned the stereo up so loudly that I practically had Jimi Hendrix in the car with me (Voodoo Chile makes such a great change from Wheels on the Bloody Bus), that I realised I was actually doing my own thing.
The next fun part was finding Helen. She was in the queue for the coffee machine when I spotted her. She glanced at me a couple of times, no doubt wondering why I was grinning at her! Once introduced, we sat together, and giggled a lot. We all giggled, and laughed. It was a great day.
There were six in the class, and Della (who is as genuine a person as I could wish to meet) allocated half an hour for each of us, and we were all encouraged to comment and advise on each other's stories, which was a constructive and encouraging exercise. Everyone had good ideas! Certainly my story, when it is subbed, will need to be credited to Me, Della, Helen, and a nice lady called Christine.
Helen's going to write a proper course review on Monday. This is good, because my brain is a shambles, and I can't think of anything else to write except that it was a great day. But, I think I said that already.
It was a great day (sorry). I learned a lot. I'm very glad I went. It was all thanks to Della, for being so clever; Helen, for being so adorable; Jane, for Bullying me into it; Julia, for looking after the small boy; Liz, for looking after the small girl; my lovely step-daughter (and her mum), for looking after the baby; and himself, for picking up the pieces.
See the Della Galton website for details of more courses. I can't recommend her teaching highly enough.
Saturday, February 23, 2008
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14 comments:
Sounds brilliant! I've never done Della's rejections-to-sales course, though I've done other courses with her. Am so jealous you and Helen met up! You are right about what a lovely person Della is.
Good luck with the rewrite and resub of that story.
Oh it sounds excellent. Wish I'd been there. I just finished Della's website and I'm seriously considering going to the Twist in the Tale workshop on Sat 12th April. Don't suppose you and Helen fancy it too?
Is the workshop very far from a train station do you know?
Fab Leigh. I'm so glad you enjoyed it. I'm going to go and look at the website and see if I can get to a course next time I'm in the UK.
JJx
How great to 1) do your own thing for a day 2) meet Helen and other lovely people and 3) get so much out of the course.
Sounds brilliant. Am off to look at her website now:-)
Thank you, Womagwriter. I have to say that you came up in conversation! She gave us that 'what do you call a writer who doesn't give up?' quote!
Cally - Oh, I'd love to do another course, but I'm not sure I can earn that many Brownie points again so soon. I'll work on it! If you put BH10 7LH into multimap you'll find the venue's location (Kinson Community Centre). The nearest station appears to be Branksome, 3-miles away towards the town centre.
JJ - Oh, do try to get to one of them. It was sooo useful!
Lane - Oh, yes. Totally refreshing, on all levels!
Leigh - sounds like a great course. I have been tempted by her courses in the past I have to say, but never got round to it.
I've just seen your comment on my blog re: lofts. It was expensive BUT cheaper than moving (which is what our alternative was). We thought it better to invest in the house than put our money into the govermnets coffers with stamp duty etc!! It sounds daft but it is going to change the way we live at home. I am so excited by it. If you want to know more send me an email (it is in my profile) and I'll fill you in on the process!
Glad you had such a great day, Leigh. Great that it was such a small group too and that you got to meet up with Helen. Good luck with those re-writes.
Yes, we should definitely have another bloggers' reunion at the 12April course. Need to check my work diary - but if I can pull it off I'd love to go.
I'm so envious, it sounds like great fun and very useful. So glad that you enjoyed it so much.
Helen - I can really recommend it! Loads of fun, hugely informative, and good value for money.
Thanks, Maddie. Your earlier comment gave me the confidence that I wasn't going to be torn to shreds, which meant I could look forward to it too!
Helen(mh) - Oh, this is gonna cost me so many brownie points...
Debs - Thank you!!!
It sounds fantastic Leigh! Doing your own thing for the day, meeting and giggling with Helen and then immersing yourself in a talking about writing! Inspirational!
And good to hear that you had such a solid backup on the home front!
I've done the Twist in the Tale workshop with Della - it's a good one. My resulting twist-ender is still out there being considered (I hope) by TAB.
Gosh if you all go to that course I'll have to drive up to Kinson at lunchtime to say hi!
Constructive and fun - that's what I call a good day out!
There's an award for you at mine! Mwah!
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