Summary:

Snowed in at a writing retreat – every writer’s dream? I’ve certainly enjoyed it!

 

Wednesday:

 

I went to Vauxhall after work to meet Hannah and got on with some more Artisan revisions (this will be a common theme in Weeknotes for the next few months…), working on finishing off the requirements of putting the minor character’s point of view back in from the previous draft.

 

I finished the Self-Editing book, and then put together a master list of all the different projects and activities I can choose from on the writing retreat next week.

 

Then I moved on to the next point on the Artisan Revision Plan, making the description and capabilities of the magic robots clearer! I went through my notecards and highlighted all the scenes where the robots appear so it would be easier next time to identify possible revision points.

 

Friday:

 

Off to Devon for a writing retreat today!

 

But I decided to be extra specially keen and stop off at Good & Proper with Ann for a few hours during the day, to make sure I really took advantage of my writing opportunities.

 

I spent a few minutes adding submission opportunities from Mslexia to my rolling spreadsheet, and then went back to the Artisan robots. I went through their first few scenes, adding extra physical description and going into more detail about how they think and feel, and how the human characters respond to them.

 

Over lunch, I started reading Bird by Bird, by Anne Lamott, which is something that’s been recommended to me many times as a good book for writers.

 

Then, I looked over the rest of the Artisan revision plan, and realised that the rest of the points I wanted to cover on the retreat could be grouped into two or three categories. So, I wrote some notes, trying to organise my thoughts, as they all required further development, rather than being things I could just get on with fixing.

 

Then it was off to Paddington to get the train! I spent some time on the journey, planning out what I wanted to achieve during the retreat at the glorious Stickwick Manor with the amazing Charlie from Urban Writers Retreat.

 

Saturday:

 

I started off my first full retreat day by compiling notes on the Artisan ‘bad guys’, which helped me crystallise where their involvement in the story needed expanding and changing. It’s a tricky area because there’s a ton of back story, complex character relationships and ideology clashes that need to be conveyed, but in a way that doesn’t clog up the plot, or give away too much, too soon.

 

I took a break by writing a review of the last and next family book club books, and sent it to The Wordy Birds for their next radio show.

 

I went through the current set of Artisan notecards and highlighted where the new ‘bad guy’ scenes needed to be and where the current scenes needed to be amended.

 

Then I did some very important research for my Space Swap story by watching some episodes of The Orville! I made notes as I went along.

 

I went through all the Artisan notecards again, highlighting more scenes for edits or additions, and jotting down reminders for aspects I want to include. This resulted in a comprehensive list of all the remaining changes for the first half of the novel. Then I plugged myself into Marilyn Manson’s The Pale Emperor and set to work!

 

Sunday:

 

Bit of a slow start today, though I think reading in the bath was beneficial to my general mental health.

 

Once I got downstairs, I got myself set up with tea, music (Evanescence today), tablet and notecards, and set myself a target to complete five more scenes before I could have a break. That took less than an hour, so I went upstairs and watched my final research episode of The Orville, taking more notes as I went along. I then compiled the notes I wanted to use in my story and added them to the current draft for ease of reference.

 

After lunch, I went out to play in the snow for a while, before settling back down with Artisan revision, making it to the halfway point for the next round of amendments. I ended up ahead of where I was expecting to be by this point in the retreat, which was gratifying.

 

I also caught up with my reviews, after finishing a book last night. I finished off by putting together a full day’s schedule for tomorrow, since I didn’t think I’d been working hard enough on retreat so far.