Yesterday I went to 'Writing for Children and Young Adults' at the NSW Writers Centre. As I might have mentioned at Clarion everyone kept calling me a Young Adult writer - so I thought I'd better investigate further.

I went to two and a half sessions of a potential four (which for me is pretty good - given my usual attention span!)

The first session was on Taboos in YA writing. Can we talk about death? Suicide? Drugs? Sex. Talk did largely focus around death. Apparently some school libraries do it, and some don't. And if you're going for educational publications - think conservative. Suicide is, it seems, a sad loser - despite the fact that we have increasing rates of youth suicide.

It was interesting and certainly got the ideas sparking.

The next session was about creating worlds for YA and children. Not as interesting - perhaps because I'd heard this kind of topic before (perhaps not with the YA slant). However I was hedged in and couldn't politely leave early.

The third session I attempted was a panel of Children's and YA reviewers talking about what works for them and what doesn't. After a short while I decided that I probably should get some more publications up and actually write a novel before stressing too much about what reviewers might say. I snuck out and home for a lovely long nap! (Possibly powered by a few Sangria's the previous night).

Last night I wrote 500 odd lovely new words, and this morning I was up early brain ticking again. I've put aside most of today and tomorrow (yipee - no work for me!) to get more words on paper.