After all that I had a nice sleep and did some self-care quests and hoped for the best for wrap-up. There was also more socialising but I spoke about that already. The only thing I did different this time was to keep the camera off except for when I asked a question. (Yes I ask questions, especially if I can and feel silence would be embarrassing for the host.

Wrap up was with the leader from the first workshop. I was looking forward to that because for my needs, she had the best leading style. I was still not really in speaking order. I tried not to and only to react when spoken to. It may have been noticed this time. 😅

ngl, I wished I could just have used the chat to communicate. I mean, why not? My spelling is atrocious when I type fast, but we were all writers with a huge imagination here… But that is not the accepted and normal way of communication. And yes, I will always try to be normal. It is in me by now. I have worked on little else for over 30 years. I think it will be difficult to shed.

As before, everybody was very kind and understanding. I am not sure if I will ever get used to it. I was able to explain some of the factors that made this hard on me.

• I am working on a different WIP and am lot loving the one workshopped as much as I would had I been working on that
• I was horribly prepared for the query and that I didn’t think it through on my own compounded the stress.
• I feel like a burden to the rest of the participants because I can’t keep it together.
• My head kept turning positive feedback into bad loops

There were positive things, too. Things not connected to the words I had brought. My writing is doing ok and my current WIP is lovely. I am in the scary position where people have already volunteered to beta this heap of fluff’n’porn. Like, more than for Sava. Maybe, if things go well I’ll have it ready for Queery Fest.

It was great to hear where everybody was planning to go next on their journey. Everybody sounded invigorated and motivated to pursue their stories and their path. I had also learned things about my writing and my path. None of which made me starry-eyed though.

The books of our workshop leader sound absolutely amazing. I am happy to have met her and that she is now part of my twitter feed. 🤩

The closing ceremony was also nice. I kept the camera off and apart from a second of acute envy for not winning a thing I only knew about for half a minute it was not exciting. So I’ll just pin it on here with the this one paragraph.