As I mentioned a a short while back, this past weekend was the Australian Romance Readers Association‘s Romantic Rendezvous (Locked Down) event.
In a time when in-person conferences are not an option, many organizations have been coming up with creative virtual events to fill the gap. This event by the ARRA included 50 YouTube video sessions of author chats, readings, panels, and feature interviews.
While the event had a live feel to it, with the video sessions posted according to the daily schedule, it had actually all been recorded earlier. As a plus, that meant that there was plenty of time to address any technical difficulties that cropped up during the initial recording, so the posted sessions were basically trouble-free (well, except for the closed-captioning, but they may not have had control over that).
Anyway, as you can imagine, 50 sessions is a lot of watching/listening to fit into a single weekend. I gave it the old college try, but I still have a few sessions left in my queue.
As I listened to each session, I tried to pull out some piece of information that resonated (and, in all honesty, seemed like it might make a blog topic). In some cases I came up empty-handed, which is not too surprising since the event was aimed at readers rather than writers, but I did come up with a few.
Today’s informational nugget comes via the Bella Andre chat session.
After mentioning that she was a singer/songwriter before she became a writer (I did not know that), Bella talked about what it was like to dive into self-publishing back when she first started, when it was all new and uncharted territory. The comment that stuck with me was directed at those who felt they had missed the boat by not jumping into self-publishing way back when, or last year, or last month, or whenever.
She basically said, “start now.”
It reminded me of something one of the public health representatives said on the news the other night in relation to the pandemic and the U.S. response. His comment was along the lines of “the best time for us to have done xyz was a month ago. The next best time is right now.”
So, is there something you’ve been thinking of starting but been putting it off?
Whether it’s as simple as giving that sourdough starter a go (mine finally worked!) or as complex as learning a new skill, what are you considering “starting now?”
Eight Ladies Writing 
Right now, it feels like my plate is happily full. I continue to take writing classes and marketing classes, so my “start now” may be along the continuum of becoming a better, more financially successful writer.
You know, I said that, but I just bought birding binoculars so I can work on adding bird-watching to my naturalist skills.
Considering that I like to write, I sometimes think I have a startlingly poor imagination. Right now I can’t think of an activity that I’ve been procrastinating on starting. Well, I guess, marketing efforts on my books. Getting them into production faster. Those aren’t things I “want” to do, exactly. Those are self-publishing tasks I don’t much like. But I suppose the “start now” theory applies there, too. Hey! Maybe housework will be next!!
Congrats, Elizabeth, on the sourdough starter!