This weekend, I attended Romance Writers of Australia's virtual conference Love in Isolation. I had a great time attending conference warm and safe up here in Townsville. A big thank you goes to the conference team for their perseverance to bring us this opportunity. It was great to stay in touch and have the chance to learn from each other amongst this current chaos.

Due to the Covid 19 pandamic, the Romantic Novelists' Association - the United Kingdom's romance writers organisation - hosted a mini virtual conference online. I was thrilled to take part in this opportunity from the other side of the world and was especially excited to attend a 'Creating Conflict' workshop presented by the editorial team at Mills and Boon. It was a long night, but well worth it.

This weekend, I attended GenreCon 2019 hosted by the Queensland Writers Centre with writing buddy Deeanna West. We attended workshops, networked, and I presented on a panel Write to Win.

This weekend, I attended the Romance Writers of Australia conference where I participated in The Deep Dive manuscript workshop with author Rachel Bailey, learned how to construct lovable alpha heroes, and attended a workshop on crime writing to improve my romantic suspense skills. I pitched three manuscripts to publishers and built my skills in creating conflict and plot structure. I enjoyed socialising with her fellow writers, bought too many books, and left with the goal to focus on writing category romance.

This weekend, I attended four workshops with romantic thriller writer T.M. Clark. 'Layering Your Novel' reviewed enriching manuscripts with detail and emotion. At 'Life After the First Draft', T.M. took participants through stages of edits to help make a manuscript reach a publishable standard. Then on Sunday, 'Finding Your Voice' was covered followed by a very motivating session 'Finishing That Book!'

Thank you Townsville City Council and Festival of Stories for these workshops. You can read more about my experience here.

​This July, Townsville's Festival of Stories is back and better than ever, keeping me busy for four whole weeks. Today, I attended a workshop 'Hooking the Reader' with crime writer Mark Brandi and discussed first chapters, one of my passions. After all, there is nothing more important than that vital first chapter and page.

Today, I attended The Writer's Plan, a workshop hosted by Queensland Writer's Centre's CEO and romance writer Lori-Jay Ellis. At this workshop, Lori-Jay took us through principles of goal setting in order to effectively manage writing time and complete your novel. This professional development opportunity has helped me realign my goals in order to complete my next novel by the end of the year.

You can view my writing plan here.

Another wonderful conference, where I participated in a wonderful workshop with Rachel Bailey, learned how to write for Harlequin Dare, and how to build up the tension with amazing authors Maisey Yates and Jackie Ashendon. I'm very excited for the 2019 conference in Melbourne. 

​Read more on the blog - The Writing Journey.