A creative writing workshop will contain students whose ambitions and abilities, whose conceptions of literature itself, are so diverse that what they have in common - the desire to write - could almost be considered meaningless.
— Rachel Cusk
I think that, in principle, a workshop is such a beautiful idea - an environment in which writers who are collectively apprenticed to the craft of writing can come together in order to collectively improve.
— Eleanor Catton
Being part of the Workshop is like being part of a really big family. Everyone is so close. Everyone feels the success of others who go on to do well. Whatever happens, I will still be part of the Workshop.
— Lucy Carless
This was my fourth foray in the world of Writersfest, and I have to say that each time it’s been a little bit different.
The first time was on a package that included the workshop tickets and the hotel room. I really enjoyed the workshops and learned a lot. Unfortunately, I went with a friend and came home without one (figuratively, not literally). To this day I have no idea what happened. She wasn’t talking, and I didn’t push her to. Que sera, sera.
Then we had COVID and the lockdowns, so I didn’t go back until 2022 (in 2021 I went to a different writing retreat). I still sprang for the festival pass, but this time I went for all four days. Technically it was five, but I opted out of staying the extra night just for the one workshop (which I wasn’t really interested in anyway). Instead I paid extra to hear Guy Gavriel Kay read from his newest work (and got a signed copy for the daughter).
Because I was late calling for my hotel reservation, I couldn’t get the discount rate at the Holiday Inn, and ended up staying at the Delta (which was only a block away). The workshops were interesting and I learned a lot. The weather was beautiful and I took a lot of early morning walks along the waterfront.
My third Writersfest was in March of this year. This time it was being held at the Delta, and I did call in time for the discount on my reservation. Wow! What a difference it made in the price! The weather was a little cold and crappy, which made staying at the same place where the workshops were taking place even better.
That being said, I enjoyed a couple of the workshops but was disappointed in a couple. The rest were kind of so-so, but I still learned a lot. There were a handful of us who paid for the four-day pass, and we kind of got to know each other a bit.
October’s Writersfest was held at the Holiday Inn, and even though there was no discount offered, I booked my room there. Can we say pricy? And the room wasn’t all that great. Although I did have a tiny balcony that overlooked the water. AND it’s right at the end of Princess Street, which is a mecca for shopping magpies like me.
Like many organizations, Writersfest is having a hard time getting volunteers. One noticeable difference was they no longer did the land acknowledgement at the beginning of the workshops, and sometimes there wasn’t even anyone to introduce the facilitators.
I found a couple of workshops were more seminars than actual workshops, but they were still okay. Three of them I really enjoyed and learned from them. I skipped the Travel Writing workshop to go to a reading called Folklore, Fable, and Fantastical Females. The most disappointing workshop of them all was something called Creative Collaborations – Combining Imagery and Words. It was nothing more than a sales pitch for an independent small press who sold very pricy boxed sets of stories.
Will I be going back in the spring? Maybe, maybe not. There’s a stitching retreat which I missed last year because it was the same date, but this year I’ve already got it paid for, so it’ll depend on when the spring writersfest is.
But I’ll probably go to the fall one again. And since they’re no longer offering a hotel discount as an incentive to buy the festival pass, I will probably take a better look at the workshops being offered and pick and choose what I think will be worth my while. And if that means I have more time to sit and write in my favorite coffee shop, so be it.
There are worse things I could do with my time.
* ~ * ~ * ~ * ~ *
WORDAGE REPORT
THE WEEK IN REVIEW
Honestly, I don’t have a word for last week. Yo-yo maybe, because it was weirdly up and down.
Monday we finally got our new fridge delivered. While it takes up the same amount of space as the loaner, it seems smaller inside. And I still don’t have room for my big stock pot in it, which means I’ll need to make my soups earlier in the day so they’ll be cool enough to bag up for the freezer later that same day. No more putting it off for a couple of days. 😊
Tuesday was a very uninspiring rainy day, with a stitch in at the library (which was the bright spot). When I got home I realized I had a poetry gathering the next night, so I spent the afternoon writing a poemwork poem.
Wednesday I started out making a big pot of chicken chowder for the father-in-law, and yes, it was cool enough to bag up for the freezer before bed. The poetry gathering ran a little long, but lots of good poetry was shared.
Thursday was a rather quiet day, perfect for indulging in some online shopping, and Friday involved a lot of in store shopping, followed by me making my Death By Chocolate cake to take with me to a small get-together to say goodbye to one of stitchers, who’s moving to Toronto.
Saturday the daughter, granddaughter, and I went on a shopping road trip, which was followed by the hubby and I doing some shopping, which was followed by another social event, this time at the father-in-law’s.
But in between all of that, I managed to catch up on my NaNo words.
NEW WORDS:
2636+466+210+1201=4513 words
Once again, a lot of time was saved by having part, if not all of my posts done ahead of time. And also once again, Monday’s post was rather heavily photo dependent. Thank goodness I had the presence of mind to take a lot of photos during the crafting process.
Goals For Next Week:
Keep up the good work, blog posting-wise.
NANOWRIMO:
Day 19 – 2617
Day 20 – 1930
Day 21 – 2977
Day 22 – 1788
Day 23 – 2087
Day 24 – 1936
Day 25 – 2559
Total for week 4 – 15,894
Total for month – 41,729
Slowly but surely I managed to catch up my words and as of yesterday I was back on track to the 50,000 word goal.
While I’m still a little apathetic about the whole thing, I’m liking the story better. However, it has become glaringly apparent to me that if I’m going to try and do anything with this novel in the future, I’m going to have to do a great deal of world building.
It would have been super helpful to have done all that before NaNo started, but I didn’t. So now I’m stumbling around trying to figure out the flora and fauna as I go along, what the customs and traditions of the people are, and what exactly they do with themselves all day.
Also, a better idea of what the layout of the land is would come in handy. So far I’ve got lots of jungle, some cliffs, and a river that is no where near where the people are, which makes no sense because wouldn’t they need a source of water close by?
Yeah. So there’s a lot of work ahead of me if I’m going to whip this up into any kind of shape to be readable. And honestly? I’m not even at the halfway point of the story itself, so it’ll be continued well beyond the end of NaNo.
You know, eventually.
Goal For Next Week:
Finish NaNo.
POETRY:
There was a poetry gathering last Wednesday night, and seeing as I skipped it the month before, I figured I pretty much had to show up. Plus I needed to pay my yearly dues 😉
So Tuesday afternoon had me trying to come up with a metaphysical poem (the poemwork for the month). In the end I did a black out poem. Actually, I did two of them. I looked up articles on metaphysics on Google copy/pasted a page of text from two different articles, and picked out the words and phrases to craft my poems.
I have to admit, I’m getting a little tired of all these forms. It doesn’t really leave me much time to write a poem just because I have something poetical to say. And while it’s all well and good to be able to learn a new form, the forms themselves don’t always lend themselves to creating an anthology.
Goal For Next Week:
Think about my future in poetry.
CRAFTING:
Tuesday was our library stitching, where I worked a bit on my kit. I really wanted to work more on my crafting this past week, but I didn’t have time because I was busy catching up on NaNo. I was a little jealous of one of my writing buddies, who was able to get some quality crafting done for Christmas last week.
But while I didn’t have time for crafting last week, I did find time to shop for crafting supplies. I got about $50 worth of beads and charms from Wish, and then I went to another site to buy an engraving tool and a bunch of engraving bits.
Oh! And there was a request for Christmas prints for a project with the stitchery group, so I donated all the Christmas prints (mostly fat quarters) in my stash, that I’ve had for years and didn’t know what to do with. Well, as any hoarder knows, as soon as you get rid of something, you’ll find a use for it.
It was just after I gave away my prints that I did the class in the folded stars. I could have used that Christmas fabric to do more stars. *sigh* As I recall, I got a lot of those fat quarters at Walmart, who was completely out of the ones with Christmas prints. So, instead I had to go all the way to Fabricland where I bought some off the bolt.
Also last week, I finally got around to stiffening my crocheted snowflakes. I used watered down mod podge and staked them all out on waxed paper covered cardboard. Worked really well too. Now all they need are strings.
Goal For Next Week:
Make some fabric stars; work on kit; work on zentangle.
WHAT I’M READING:
I finished The Invisible Hour by Alice Hoffman, and I really hope she’s going to write a sequel to it because I really want to know what happens next. Now I’ve started The Hike, by Lucy Clarke.
On the Kindle I finished The Psychic Cat Mysteries by S.M Reine, which was a series of five mystery stories from a cat’s point of view.
Goal For Next Week:
Keep up the moderate reading habits.
THE WEEK AHEAD:
I swear, that new leaf of mine is off in space somewhere.
The weather has been as variable as my mood. I’m still a little tired and lethargic, so this grey, dismal November is not helping things any.
I don’t know what I’m going to be writing about for Monday, maybe something about Christmas crafts. ‘Tis the season, don’t you know.
Tuesday is a regular meeting with the stitchery group. There aren’t any classes, it’s just a regular stitch in, which means a lot of talking and a little stitching.
Unless inspiration strikes me like a bolt of lightning, I’ll be using the last of pre-written poetry posts on Wednesday. And because December’s poetry gathering is early, I really should try to start working on the poemwork.
I did do a little of my indoor gardening last week. I dumped the dead plants (five of them!) and rearranged several others. So this week I’d like get my coleus clippings planted, and repot my money tree into a bigger pot.
I’ve been doing a lot of thinking about my blogging schedule, and my writing in general. Brace yourself – I’m taking the month of December off from writing, and that includes blog posts. I’ll be putting up an official notice next weekend, and then I’ll use my month to make some decisions . . . and some changes.
Starting in January, things are going to be very different around here.
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