Shake It Up Baby!

When I write, I can shake off all my cares.
— Anne Frank

'Shake It Up' definitely teaches kids about the importance of reaching for your dreams and setting high goals. It also teaches great lessons about friendship and family.
— Zendaya

I think that if you shake the tree, you ought to be around when the fruit falls to pick it up.
— Mary Cassatt

Well, here I am again, at a writer’s retreat in Kingston. I’m hoping this will be what I need to shake things up a bit and jump start my writing mojo. I think it might be working because as much as I like being here, I’m kind of looking forward to going home and working in my newly re-arranged office.

I have to say, the retreat did not get off to a great start. I thought I left in plenty of time on Thursday, but I hadn’t counted on some unnaturally heavy traffic. So . . . I was already running behind by the time I got to Kingston, and then my infallible sense of direction failed me when I turned right when I should have turned left. By the time I reached the hotel, it was already more than 30 minutes into the first workshop. So I parked the car at the hotel, and went wandering until the second workshop.

I’ll be discussing some of what I’ve learned in future posts, so for now I’m just going to share my first impressions. Of the nine workshops that have been held so far (I’m writing this on Saturday evening) I have missed two – one accidentally and one on purpose – I really enjoyed two, I’ve been disappointed in two, and today’s were great, so-so, and okay.

There’s not as much actual writing as I expected, and these people talk way too fast for effective note taking. So really, I’m not sure how my future blog posts are going to turn out. I did write a rather humorous story about a talking hand though.

There are about half a dozen of us who paid for the four-day pass, so I see them at most of the workshops. Then there are a few who are local and were able to just pick and choose what they wanted participate in. I think the most surprising group was the workshop for writing Rom Coms, which included several men.

And I don’t know if it’s stress, poor eating, or what, but I’ve been feeling pretty crappy since I’ve arrived. Coffee started having an adverse effect on my stomach, so I’ve been drinking a lot of water and green tea. I felt slightly better today, so hopefully I’ve taken a turn for the better.

The other part of the shaking it up I’ve got for you, is the changes to the wordage report that I talked about last week. Turns out the retreat has left me with some time on my hands that I don’t care to fill with watching TV or reading. And the weather has been too crappy to take any of those nice long walks I was planning on.

So I redesigned the Wordage Report a bit to include “The Week in Review” and “The Week Ahead.” I’m hoping having what I intend to do written down will encourage me to actually . . . do some of it. :-D

* ~ * ~ * ~ * ~ *

WORDAGE REPORT

THE WEEK IN REVIEW
Well, let’s see. It started out with my car having to go into the shop. Is it just me, or does my car go on the fritz every time I have to go more than 100 kilometres out of town? As you recall, the last time my car went on the fritz was around Christmas when I was supposed to go to Hamilton. And here’s a bit of trivia for you, Cobourg is almost halfway between Hamilton and Kingston.

Fortunately, the dealership was able to take my car in on Monday and I had it back on Tuesday. But I was still forced to take the hubby’s car to my stitchery gathering. I’m not fond of his car, I feel like I’m sitting on the road – I drive a GMC Terrain, he drives a Hyundai Genesis.

Despite this being the March Break, we only saw the granddaughter on Wednesday, which is a shame because she’s a lot of fun to be around. Then after her mother picked her up I spent the rest of the evening getting ready for Writersfest.

NEW WORDS:
1895+399+272+632=3,198

UP – 438 words from last week

Technically, I do have more words to show for my week, but I haven’t had time to type them out, so I can't really include them.

With the exception of Sunday’s post, they were all up on time, even the serial installment which I had to finish here. And kudos to me for getting two of them written while I was in Kingston.

Goals For Next Week:
Get some words written besides my blog posts.

EDITING:
0 hours
Well, you can hardly blame me, I was a little busy getting ready for Writersfest. But thank you Writersfest! I’m actually looking forward to getting back to work on Elemental Spirit.

Goal For Next Week:
Start work on An Elemental Spirit.

TECH & TRAINING:
No tech to speak of, unless you count attempting to connect to the hotel wifi (they changed their access and forgot to change the info card that came with their key cards) but I’ve got seven workshops of training under my belt. And I’m coming away with a new desire to keep learning. AND I really need to get on top of backing up all my stuff to Dropbox.

Goal For Next Week:
Learn something new. Figure out Dropbox.

POETRY WEDNESDAY:
Technically, last week’s poetry words should have been included in the word count from the week before, because that’s when I had them written. I believe there’s a gathering of my poetry group scheduled for this week – guess I’d better check my email to see what the poemwork is.

Goal For Next Week:
Find another new poetry form to share, do my poemwork.

CRAFTING:
Seeing as there was a stitchery gathering last week, I got a few more rows done on the afghan. Only three more colours to go! And if I actually stick to my plan to do more work in my office this week, I’ll get to crochet while watching TV at night.

Goal For Next Week:
Push to get the afghan done so I’m free to work on other stuff with a clear conscience.

WHAT I’M READING:
Believe it or not, I didn’t do much reading last week. Not even while I was away. I took four books with me, figuring I’d have plenty of time to read, but I didn’t. I’m about a quarter of the way through Hex Appeal, by Kate Johnson, and that's it.

Goal For Next Week:
Maybe try to increase my reading just a little.

THE WEEK AHEAD:
As much as I’ve enjoyed being here at Writersfest, I’m looking forward to being back at home. The chairs here are not as comfortable as they are at home, and the weather has prevented me from venturing too far from the hotel to forage for food. The restaurant here has a limited menu and it’s pretty pricy.

One of the things we learned on the first day was about daily pages – where you get up in the morning and immediately free write for 15-30 minutes before doing anything else. This is fine while I’m here, or even on the weekend, but during the week I get up at 5:30 a.m. and have just enough time to get dressed and drive to the gym, I really don’t see myself getting up 15 minutes earlier just to freewrite. I’m going to have to figure out how to modify this.

I would like to spend more time working in my office, and I can’t see any reason why I can’t begin to do so, other than my own mental hangups. And if I’m working in my office during the day, this will free me up to work on crafts during the night. The projects are piling up again.

We had one poetry workshop, and while I was a little ambivalent about the instructor, I did come away with a few ideas to apply to working on a poetry anthology. Or two. Or more. Time to pick up that big book ‘o poems and crack it open.

Two more workshops to go, and then it’s home again, home again, hot diggity dog.