Loving what you do

As some of you may know from previous blog posts, I moved to a new city in January of this year. Canberra-the capital city of Australia-is very spread out, and there are wide open spaces in between many of the suburbs. I was driving along the other day looking out at the scenery (in between watching the road, of course), and I thought to myself, "I really love living here."

You see, while I've spent the last 15 years of my life in major cities, I was raised a country girl, and I'm just starting to realize that it's in my blood.

And that got me thinking. There are some things in life that we know are just right for us, that are in our blood, that have wriggled their way into our hearts and will never let go. There are some things we tolerate, some we push through hoping they'll change for the better, others we hate right from the start. But some things, the best things, just...click. It's how I feel about living here, in a city I now hope I never leave. And it's how I feel about my writing.

My writing is what I love. And it's what I want to do for the rest of my life. No matter what happens, whether I end up published or not, whether I publish multiple books or only one, I simply can't see a day where I give my writing up. And it brings a smile to my face just thinking about it.

How about you: Do you love what you do? What things in your life make you smile, make you think that you'll never give them up?

Do you use the Writer's Knowledge Base?

Do all of you know about the awesome Writer's Knowledge Base that Elizabeth Spann Craig has put together? In her words, the WKB is "a free resource for writers to find the information they need for their particular stage of the writing journey…with 9000 links to search (and more added every day.)"

Jami Gold recently interviewed Elizabeth here, and it's fascinating to read about the process Elizabeth went through to (1) realize that we as writers need a dedicated knowledge base, and (2) put one together. For free, and in her own time too!!! As she says:

"[W]riters need different information at different times.  When they’re writing a first draft, they need plotting help.  When writers hit a wall, they want inspirational posts. When they revise, they’d like editing tips.  When they’re querying…well, you get the idea.

These writing links needed to be searchable.  It was crazy for writers to have a thousand bookmarked sites—and bookmarks for information that they don’t currently even need."

I don't know about you, but just as Elizabeth says in that interview, I've collected hundreds of bookmarked posts. So I was pretty chuffed (do you use that word in the US?) to find this amazing resource, and I thought I would share it with you. Happy researching!

How about you: Do you know about the Writer's Knowledge Base? Do you use it? Are there any other writing resources you know of/use regularly that you'd like to share with us all?