What makes today an occasion?

Well, it’s raining. And that’s interfered with what I meant to do today, which was to transplant a few things (fennel, sedum, cabbages) into holes and beds I prepared for them yesterday. Somehow I just can’t find motivation to get soaked and muddy when it might not be raining later. Or tomorrow.

You see, the teaching season is over until August, so now I’ve got time to catch up on important things other than caring for students. And on a rainy day like today, that means updating my website and communicating with the folks I can’t easily see face-to-face. Which includes you!

So here’s a little of what I’ve been up to–

During the 2021-2022 teaching season I taught a variety of topics to a number of age groups. To the young at places like The Animation Workshop here in Viborg and the South Gate Creative Writing School in Aalborg, I’ve covered story structures as well as writing for children and facilitated a good number of workshops. To the not-so-young who come to me to get better at reading and speaking English, we worked through topics like crime, cooking, and animals of Canada.

I was also lucky enough to be invited to give a talk with a teacher friend to a group of English teachers about how they could use Creative Writing exercises and techniques to help their students enjoy writing more. They fed me a delicious sandwich and seem to have enjoyed the presentation thoroughly.

As for my own writing, I’m nearing the end of a global edit of my current novel-in-progress. It’s been fairly exciting because this draft (number 17, I’m pretty sure) has led me to a point where I’m altering a couple major plot points right at the end of the story so that not all of the story threads tie off in tidy bows. I’ve been able to make changes on that level because I’m in an editing phase where total word count has to drop. To be specific, I’ve cut from nearly 164,000 words to under 128,000. When I get to 120,000, I’ll do another rounds of queries to find an agent. You can get a peek at the story and some inspiration images now, though, if you click on “Annunciation” in the Current Projects part of my website (www.llcn.dk).

Amazing to think that once upon a time I struggled to write even a thousand words in a row!

But you must be wondering why today’s an occasion–Only this: It’s today. And there’s so much worth doing.

Warmest wishes to you in your day, whatever it holds.

Leslie