Forty-eight hours of enlightenment, inspired guidance, skilled encouragement, camaraderie and laughter, all at a lakeside resort serving up excellent meals (none of them requiring my prep, serving, or clean-up!) and a cosy chair by the fireplace - what's not to love?
Even though the sun was unable to make a full commitment, the great day star did gift us with a few brilliant cameo appearances.
Saturday brought a mixed bag of weather - rain, sleet, and wet snow. Still, we were spared a full blast of winter, unlike the Turning Leaves retreat of 2013.
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| Turning Leaves November 2013 |
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| Turning Leaves November 2018 |
In short, even the weather was set up to encourage writers of all stripes to gather indoors, learn a thing or two and WRITE. The Writescape team of Ruth E. Walker and Gwynn Scheltema truly do know how to craft, not just a good, but a great retreat for writers and the 2018 edition of Turning Leaves was no exception.
For this, Writescape's Tenth Anniversary, bestselling author Andrew Pyper was the guest author and workshop leader. He led us deeper into consideration of the often muddy midpoint of our works in progress. In the memoir I've been writing I've been struggling for substance and clarity on just this section. I had a beginning and an end but no idea how to connect them in the middle. Using Andrew's workshop insights, I discovered that I actually did have a midsection written pretty much in full. Thank you, Andrew! I now need to put some more flesh on the beginning but I can no longer whine that the middle doesn't exist. Score!
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| Andrew Pyper |
But that's not all! I went on this retreat deliberately leaving the storage box, the one full of all the notes, partial manuscripts, and reference material for the memoir, at home under my desk. I wanted to allow a new muse, one that has been tapping on my shoulder for some months now, a chance to write. It took until Sunday morning for her to get my pen moving, but once the words were flowing on the page she did not and has not stopped! At first, I thought the piece was going to be at most a few paragraphs of free-writing, but now at nearly 3000 words, I'm thinking it's at least a short story and maybe even a novel. I can't quite discern a more specific genre beyond fiction at this point, but it just might be that some of Andrew Pyper's penchant for horror rubbed off on me. What I do know is that I'm adding to the story whenever I can and when I can't I'm thinking about the next scene and ones after that. Score - Again!
Oh! There was also a six-line poem that emerged from my pen tip Sunday morning. That was a huge surprise. Other than an off-colour limerick from time to time, I've never written any poetry. Score #3 - a hat trick!
I am indebted to Gwynn and Ruth for providing such a fruitful experience and for offering the opportunity to meet and learn from Andrew Pyper. I'm also grateful for the community of writers, both familiar friends and new, with whom I shared this time. It's amazing what happens at a writers' retreat!
For now, I'm back home and writing.
Life is good.
©2018 April Hoeller
