The Retreat Was Successful, Now Get Back to Work!

Life gets in again... I had a very successful retreat up to Powell River. I wrote on the coach on the way there, I wrote on the ferry, I wrote in my little room in Myst and Jonathan's house, I wrote in the coffee shop, I wrote in the bakery in Lund, I wrote on the way home... They fed me, they didn't mind when I ignored them for hours, they discussed writing with me. I came home feeling stoked about book three and just getting back into writing after a long hiatus. Of course now that I'm home I have two kids and a house and responsibilities to get in the way, but I'm in a way better frame of mind than I usually am at the beginning of summer holidays.

Part of what helped me, I think, is that I stopped worrying about what I was going to write while I was away. I told myself that in order to get the ball rolling again I had to simply write and not worry about what I was producing. "The first 100 pages you write are going to be shite," I told myself, "so just get them over with, and then you can proceed." It seemed to work, because I didn't worry about what I was writing, and I managed to produce some stuff that might actually turn out to be useful. It certainly helped me with the goal of generating ideas for book three! And I even tackled a problem that affects the story as a whole and I came up with a solution.

So, onward and upward! And when Myst and Jonathan eventually open up their Writers' Hideaway Retreat destination, I will highly recommend it to all my writer friends (so long as I get first dibs).

Back to it.

Back into Writing... I hope

Again with this! Way too long between posts... Sorry. Well, not that anyone's been pestering me to update, so maybe my absence went unnoticed!

Election's over, Seussical's over... it's time to get my life back. I am exhausted, and I'm still not sleeping well at night, so it's kind of hard to get back into the swing of things. Seussical went extremely well and I'm very proud of the kids and the product we created. I have, for those of you bugging me about it, already told the powers that be that I will not be directing the play next year: Two years in a row is enough when you're a parent volunteer. 

I haven't done ANYTHING new besides work on the show since January. A little bit of work training SP's for Kwantlen, and a little bit of my own SP work, but virtually nothing in the way of writing. Colleen is critiquing Dark Elf's Warrior for me, so I have done a small amount of editing/rewriting here and there, but as for creating anything new.... I hardly know what that means anymore. I certainly don't remember what it feels like. So now I have to retrain myself. My creative mind has worked overtime dealing with problems on stage, and now I must turn it inward again, dig up those characters who have been so badly neglected that they've stopped even tapping me on the shoulder and saying, "Hello? What about us?" They've been really quiet lately, and I need to wake them up.

I have started by arranging a Writing Retreat to Powell River. My writer friends Myst and Jonathan will put me up for a few days, feed me (I will help, of course), make sure I have coffee and they will make me write. I will critique for them and they will bug at me and even critique for me... Even if all I produce in those few days is utter shite at least it will be something new to flush those cobwebs out. Myst might even let me throw a few more knives to work out frustration! [see my photo].

Oh, and I've recently taken up the ukulele. That's another good way to focus. My uke is bright purple with sparkles. It's pretty Rock & Roll. I can play Five Year's Time (Noah and the Whale), Always Look on the Bright Side of Life (Monty Python), and Five Dollar Bill (Corb Lund), among other things. My brother and I had a most excellent duet jamming session with him on mandolin and me on uke, playing Highway to Hell, and Day Tripper and other cool stuff. Can't wait to see what my purple rock & roll ukulele looks like on stage. All I need is a wicked strap and some electric pickups.

I wish to not do that to myself again, this whole "put writing completely aside so I can do some other project that will not, ultimately, do much for me, at least, not my writing career." 

Ok? You heard it here.