Thing 32

32. Have a stay-at-home private writer’s retreat

Accomplished! I spent most of the 14th, 15th, and 16th doing nothing but concentrating on my writing. I didn't get everything accomplished that I wanted to, but I did manage to have a brilliant idea pop into my head that I'm totally working on still (just finishing up the first draft).

Here's what I managedd to get done during the weekend:

• Picked a notebook out of my collection to use during the weekend (I HAVE WAY TOO MANY NOTEBOOKS; it was great to put one to use)


• Watched class 1 of this year's University of Iowa MOOC: Who Writers Write Fiction (Storied Women)


• Read class 1 required reading


• Wrote and posted assignment for class 1 (ended up writing a short story in my Strokes 'verse about Maylyn and Swan--the first time I've ever written from Maylyn's POV!)


• Listened to "Unwritten" by Natasha Bedingfield upon waking up on Saturday morning


• Participated in class discussions


• Read one and a half books on writing and took notes along the way of things I want to remember


• Read a few Writer's Chronicle articles I'd been meaning to read for ages


• Backed up laptop computer to external drive in fire safe (hadn't done that since May) so recent stories will be safe


• Went through writing shelves and took a bunch of books off that I don't need... then put 80% of them back on again after double-thinking


• Watched Back to the Future (IMHO, one of the tightest written stories ever; every detail is important. I find it highly inspirational when I'm struggling with plots)


• Volunteered at the library, to bond with books in a non-writing capacity


• Went to Story Slayers write-in at Panera and wrote for at least 3 hours straight with some fellow writers


• Finished my Strokes "Morning After" story which, now, I'm not sure I want to post because it is technically part of a larger piece if I'm going with my original plan of writing Jamie's story as a novel. Still, it turned out good


• Came up with great idea for a collection I can create to self-publish in 2017 and started work putting it together. Squee! So excited about this idea.

Despite this lovely list about, I only got about a third of what I had hoped to this weekend. It was great to be able to devote a whole weekend to writing and not having to do it in a NaNoWriMo way of doing nothing but writing. I feel like I learned a lot, got some big things accomplished, and was inspired to come up with a great new project. Definitely a great weekend!