Hello.  I’m back to blogging!

Except for that review about Peter Bowerman’s great book, I haven’t blogged since October 2008.  Life got depressing and kind of fell apart, so the urge to write left me (a rare occurrence for me).

Briefly, I was laid off from my adjunct professor of English position at CSU Fullerton, due to California’s budget crisis.  I went on unemployment, got really depressed, ate and watched TV, and slouched for a few months.

Then I got involved with the Irvine, CA branch of the EDD (Employment Development Department), one of the best uses of government/tax money I’ve ever seen.  They helped me out of my depression and got me involved with life, helping people with their resumes and doing some training about job search skills.

So I felt better, alive and functioning, but still no jobs were to be found.  I did a short term contract as an instructional designer, which I loved, but that ended.

And then I decided to take up an invitation of a friend who had been talking of moving to Portland, OR for at least a year.  I realized that Orange County, CA wasn’t the best place for me (I really hated the heat, all that constant sunshine, the politics, etc, etc, etc.), so around my birthday, mid June 2009, I decided to move to Portland, too.

I started packing and getting rid of stuff.  I call it “de-materializing’ as I am becoming less materialistic by the day.  I got rid of at least 2/3 of my stuff.  I visited the Portland area in August, reacquainted myself with my friend, whom I had talked to and emailed constantly over the last few years but hadn’t actually seen in about 20 years.  That first moment at the airport was weird, and fun.  I found an apartment, checked out the area, and decided the energy was right for me.

I moved to Beaverton, OR on September 1, 2009.  And I love it.  Oh, sure, the first few months of rain (and then snow – how weird was that?) were a bit of a shock.  My arthritic knees didn’t appreciate the move.  But when I returned from an early Christmas with my family, I was truly glad to be back in Oregon.

Now, I’m used to the weather and humidity.  I bundle up when I have to actually go out.  And I’ve implemented my big dream of mine, one that I’ve been fantasizing about for many years, and now I’m back to blogging.

What’s the dream?  I am writing full time, creating books, courses, and other stuff for writers.  I’m using some of my old, previously published materials as the starting point, adding to it from my experiences and knowledge of writers, and really whipping it up.

Since January 1, when I allowed myself to shift focus and start work in earnest on Quilliful Publications (www.quillifulpublications.com), I’ve finished a book I had been working on since doing the workshop in 2007.  I actually had five complete – and different- versions of the book.  Now it’s published and on Amazon.com, on my website, and as a Kindle book, although I can’t guarantee I did everything right with the formatting, since I’m not an HTML programmer!  And that is in only 5 weeks.

And I’ve got other stuff going, which I’ll discuss in later posts.

I’ll talk more about my latest book in the next blog post.

So anyway… I”m back.

I plan to post at least twice a week about writing issues. I’ll focus on nonfiction writing and writing in general (grammar, style, mechanics, stuff like that), but I’ll also touch on some fiction topics as they occur to me.  I’ll announce books, courses, and other publications and products as they become available from either Quilliful or from Children’s Book Insider, my publisher for my children’s writing books.

By the way, Children’s Book Insider is  doing a 3rd edition (2010) of two of the three Indepth books: Plot Workshop and Character Workshop.  These books will be available as e-books soon after  I finish expanding and revising them, hopefully this weekend, and getting them to CBI.  And we’ve got other plans, to be divulged later.

I guess that’s it for now.

If anyone is actually reading this, I’d love to hear from you.  Please leave a comment.

Ta ta for now

Katie