I never really believed in the power of workshops until I did a few. Being in that two day workshop about the self employment program and becoming self employed made me really feel it was something attainable and I really could change my life. Now the glow has begun to tarnish and I'm back to being me again. I want another workshop.

So, I have decided to follow some advice I wrote for writers a couple of years ago. I will create my own workshop. Here are some quotes offered at my workshop, just to get me started.

First some humour:

George W. Bush: 'One of the great things about books is sometimes there are some fantastic pictures.

Now the inspiration:

The only thing in the world you can change is yourself and that makes all the difference in the world. - The Cher

It takes a lot of courage to release the familiar and seemingly secure, to embrace the new. But there is no real security in what is no longer meaningful. There is more security in the adventurous and exciting, for in movement there is life, and in change there is power. - Alan Cohen

The important thing is this: To be able at any moment to sacrifice what we are for what we could become. - Charles DuBois

In times of change, learners inherit the Earth, while the learned find themselves beautifully equipped to deal with a world that no longer exists. - Eric Hoffer

If you don't like the way the world is, you change it. You have an obligation to change it You just do it one step at a time. - Marian Wright Edelman

It's not so much that we're afraid of change or so in love with the old ways, but it's that place in between that we fear . . . . It's like being between trapezes. It's Linus when his blanket is in the dryer. There's nothing to hold on to. - Marilyn Ferguson

There is a certain relief in change, even though it be from bad to worse! As I have often found in travelling in a stagecoach, that it is often a comfort to shift one's position, and be bruised in a new place. - Washington Irving

This is my star inspirational quote for this workshop, such as it is:

Some men see things as they are and say, "Why?" I dream of things that never were and say, "Why not? - George Bernard Shaw

Here is an idea for the next time you are stuck with an idea and can't fight your way out of a wet paper bag with it. Try the reframing matrix plan.

The Reframing Matrix is a formal technique used to look at problems from different perspectives. It helps to expand the number of options open to you for solving a problem.

You draw up a reframing matrix by posing a question in a box in the middle of a piece of paper. You then draw a grid around it. Each cell will contain approaches to the problem, seen from one perspective.

One way of using the technique is the '4 Ps' approach. This looks at the problem from the following viewpoints: Product, Planning, Potential and People. Another set of perspectives is to ask your self how different professionals would approach the problem. Useful professions to consider would be medical doctors, engineers, systems analysts, sales managers, etc.

I found this on a site called Mind Tools. Consider applying the reframing matrix to your writing blocks or hold ups. What would your four perspectives or viewpoints be? Overall you could say: Story, Publisher, Reader, Characters. But it could be applied to sections of your fiction too. Look at the situation from the viewpoint of four different characters. If you are working on a non-fiction article look at it from the viewpoint of four possible readers- other writers, professionals, your siblings, a checkout cashier, etc.

It does help to give you fresh ideas and slants/ angles on the ideas you already have.

From the book - How to Start a Home-Based Writing Business by Lucy V. Parker, these are sixty key assignments for home-based writers:

• Advertising copy
• Anniversary materials for corporations, organizations, institutions, municipalities
• Annual reports
• Articles for employee magazines
• Articles for single-sponsor magazines
• Articles for trade journals and small magazines
• Brochures
• Calendars
• Capability brochures
• Catalogues and product sheets
• CD-ROM/ Interactive media writing
• City and newcomer guides
• Collateral materials
• Conference and trade show materials
• Consultation
• Contributing editor assignments
• Critical reviewing
• Direct-mail packages
• Directories
• Editing
• Employee benefit materials
• Environmental materials
• Family histories and genealogies
• Flyers
• Fund-raising materials
• Ghost writing and collaboration
• Greeting card writing
• Indexing
• Industry-specific writing
• Instructional materials
• Investor-relations materials.
• Letter writing
• Manuals
• Menu writing
• New product regulatory writing
• Newsletters
• Newspaper feature writing, reporting and stringing
• Packaging design and copy
• Policies and procedures writing
• Political campaign writing
• Press releases and press kits
• Proofreading
• Proposals
• Public relations services and materials
• Radio and TV ads and promotions
• Researching
• Restaurant reviewing and writing
• Resume writing
• Retail and mall promotions
• Sales presentations
• Scripts and storyboards
• Speeches
• Sports materials and services
• Teaching writing
• Technical writing
• Telemarketing scripts
• Transcripts and other forms of word processing
• Translations
• Travel writing
• Website content providing

Go through the list and pick out which you like to do, could do more of, or could learn to do. It's a great list. Find a copy of the book for more information about any of the assignments above.

You can also look up information about being a virtual assistant. I know some writers/ web designers/ virtual assistants - people who are leaving their options open and learning a lot of new skills. The key is to find your niche, the area(s) where you can flourish and grow and really love what you're doing.

Well here we are, another Saturday morning.

Saturday morning was a lot more exciting when I was a kid. There were cartoons and my Mom would make a big breakfast. Whatever she felt like whipping up: pancakes, bacon and eggs, fruit salad, omelettes, sausages, French toast, red river cereal, scrambled eggs, bagels, cinnamon buns and just about anything you can imagine as breakfast food. Sometimes something quite fancy and sometimes just a bowl of anonymous flakes in milk. I appreciate it much more now. All those breakfasts in our sunny kitchen on Rouge Hills Drive, West Hill, Ontario. That was a long time ago.

I still really like going out for breakfast, when someone else does the cooking and the cleaning up. Living alone I don't get inspired to whip up anything for breakfast. I would make pancakes and bacon and eggs and French toast and such when I was married. Until things go not so nice. Then I didn't bother, didn't even bother to get up to be with him, let alone cook for him. I ate ice cream when I got up. Not a great plan I have to warn you.

Anyway, that's what Saturday morning makes me think of. All those mornings in our cosy house and having breakfast together at the table. Being called away from the TV, which was not that interesting anyway. Mom liked to have conversation so we always blabbed about something or other. Sometimes she had a plan for the day or the weekend. She was a firm believer in unplanned plans though. We might go to the flea market in Pickering but end up on a road trip to Niagara Falls instead. There were weekend visits to the Grandparents in Woodstock. Two hours was just borderline distance with four kids in a car. We had a big van for awhile, that gave each of us our own bench. It was pretty cool to stretch out or find some other way to take up all your available space. I had books and a little sister. I could have suggested she go somewhere else but I didn't mind. Sometimes I had my other sister, taking refuge from my brother. They always competed, over everything. But he was closer to my age and had advantages. That didn't stop her from trying to win. She was "Queen of Stubborn", relentless to the point of craziness.

So those were Saturday mornings ages ago. Now I'm just being lazy. I should/ could be working on something practical and necessary and important. Maybe some part of my brain is waiting for breakfast, to come to the table and chat about what we might do today. Too bad it's noon now. If I make a fresh coffee maybe I can fool myself into self discipline.

Or I could get dressed. Wearing your pajamas till after noon on a Saturday morning is not a sign of a productive day. But, it was fun when we were kids. I don't want to go back, not at all. It's nice to have memories but you have to keep making new ones to go with the part of your life you're living in now.

You would be surprised how many times I have heard that in reference to myself.

It seems that things which I consider doing and then think, "why not?" Make other people cringe in horror and give me the evil eye and back away, quickly even.

Sometimes it makes me feel I must be a mutant freak. But, all the reasons they come up with for not doing whatever it was just never occured to me. Besides, most of them seem like things I could cope with, if they came up.

Did anyone else get on Noah's Ark under the category of mutant freak? Raise your cloven hooves please.