Friday, August 19, 2011

Lazarus Calling

Bonjour! Je suis de retour.

I heard a voice crying in the wilderness...........well not the wilderness - more like cyberspace.......and it wasn't exactly crying - more like just making a statement.............and it wasn't just any old voice - it was Maisey Yates..........Okay enough! This is what she said:

"Due to the upcoming New Voices contest..."

And then everything went all fuzzy and I think I must have passed out with my eyes open and without actually losing consciousness because the next thing I remember is googling New Voices and seeing that they were running another competition.

So it's been like 19 weeks or something ridiculous since I last blogged.  Probably in blogging terms that's the equivalent to writing something hideous enough to offend every single last person on the planet and then expecting to have people waiting to read your next post - so if there's no one out there listening anymore, well that's cool, but I needed some time.

Okay so the quick story is my sister died.  We had time to prepare and we laid down some lovely memories with her but her death was still an awful shock.  I don't like to talk about it so if anyone is out there reading this, say a prayer for my family if you feel comfortable doing that or send some positive vibes my way but I'd prefer not to discuss it.  Instead I'd love to hear some encouragement regarding my writing.

See I thought that writing would be the one thing that I would be able to use as a viable distraction but it didn't turn out that way - I found it really hard to work up enough motivation to sit in front of the computer and when I managed that, what I did write was disjointed and I couldn't sustain one project for very long.

So I gave up.

I knitted and I cooked and I watched and read Jane Austen (my goto gal for literary comfort) and because of the cooking I sorta plumped out a bit a lot.  Cue the sit-down-and-have-a-serious-talk-with-yourself-about-your-diet-and-lifestyle chat.  Which was pretty awesome even if I do say so myself and now that I'm eating better and exercising fairly regularly I felt ready to start lurking around some of the sites that inspired me to start writing again in the first place (Maisey, Jackie, Megan Crane et al).

So I click on Maisey's site first and voila! I find that New Voices is running again and my first reaction is: omigodomigodomigodomigod squeeeeeeaaaaaallllllll.  Which surprised me really - in a nice way.

And now here I am, blogging again, writing again, wondering if people will remember me if I comment on their blogs, getting all psyched up to hear what the changes they made to the comp, getting all antsy about which idea I'm going to use...............

but most importantly:  I'm here.

:)

3 comments:

Lacey Devlin said...

Pfftt 19 weeks, 19 speeks. I can't remember what I was doing yesterday so if you want to say it's been two days since you'd wrote or blogged I promise to believe you.

Are you entering New Voices, Elissa? I don't know if I am but I've caught the buzz. If you are thinking of entering there's a facebook site where a lot of authors are hanging out with hints etc and where you can ask questions (http://www.facebook.com/groups/250729414946433/). There's also a forum on eharlequin (http://community.eharlequin.com/forums/write-stuff/new-voices-2011-padded-cell?page=2).

Suzanne Ross Jones said...

Of course we remember you - we've missed you.

Good luck with NV, Elissa. Be sure to let us know when your entry's up because I'd love to read it.

XX

Jackie Ashenden said...

Big hugs, Elissa. Lovely to see you back.