Santa Fe Writing Workshop

Continuing the trend of trying to connect up to other people as a freelancer, I spent the last week at a science writing workshop in Santa Fe. I applied several months ago both because I thought it might be a good way to kick start magazine writing again, and because I was encouraged to do so by one of the leaders of the workshop (who oh, also just happens to write book reviews for the New York Times -- not that anyone's noticing. :-) )

There were about 55 students there, with really diverse ranges of experience and expertise. Some were scientists, who were just starting to think about switching or augmenting their careers with writing. Some worked in press offices. Some were established freelancers. One was a children's book writer. (Oh, and one was a scientist studying male "houseboys" -- the short answer is they're well educated and make $200 an hour, sometimes just to cuddle.)

And, of course, as per usual, talking to all these people doing interesting things just got my batteries completely recharged. I have a list of 72 thousand things to do post-the workshop and I'm trying to get on all of them while I still have the motivation, and before next week's crisis of "why oh why did I ever think I could handle this?!" panic sets in.