[stylist] {Spam?} New member, well old member returning

[Tessa]

Hi All
It's been a number of years since I was on this list. I'm glad to be back.

My name is Tessa and I've been writing at least since the early 80's and 
telling stories before then.

This has been a very good year for me where writing is concerned. I belong 
to the Northwestern Ontario writers workshop one hundred or so members 
strong and very active. I've had three pieces published in our NOWW magazine 
this year, absolutely amazing.

Every year NOWW runs a writing contest open to anyone. One of the categories 
was novel excerpt which we haven't had as a category in the past. I 
submitted two pieces and won first and third. I'm still on cloud nine when I 
think about that LOL.

I mostly write novels and have about a dozen rough drafts waiting for some 
serious polishing. In 2010 I took the NaNoWriMo challenge for the first time 
and that piece was my first prize winner, my 2014 NaNoWriMo piece won third. 
So, is anyone else doing NaNoWriMo?

For anyone unfamiliar with NaNoWriMo it begins November 1st and the idea is 
the write 50,000 words in 30 days. At the moment I'm trying to figure out 
just what I'm going to write.

Also, we Canadians now have limited access to bookshare and the incredible 
amount of research material available there. I Love it. I just finished 
reading Laura Deutsch's book writing from the senses 59 exercises to Ignite 
your writing, a terrific exploration of the senses and exercises to 
encourage people to think about the things they taste, touch feel and so on, 
even as a writer who is blind I appreciated it and will need to read it 
again to do the exercises.

I use a braille notetaker for a lot of my writing though in the past I have 
used slate and styless on old magazine papers. I still have some of that 
stuff but it's so faded I'm not sure it's even readable any more or worth 
reading. A local poet told me she had burned all her old work, to me it was 
devistating, how could she do that, she said it was liberating, LOL. I 
suppose that makes sense, I look at some of my old stuff and cringe.

Anyway just thought I'd say hi.

Tessa