Word count: 28663 | Since last entry: 7477
Back from the Rain Forest Writers Village writing retreat — four days in the woods, writing and hanging out with writers. It was awesome and relaxing. I wrote a lot (159 words Thursday night, 2221 words Friday, 2379 words Saturday, and 1418 words Sunday for a total of 6712 words for the weekend) and finished the chapter I’d been working on just five minutes before closing ceremonies started.
The chapter’s too long and too heavy on the exposition, but I have time to whack it back a bit if that’s what I choose to do. Which I may.
A snippet:
If only Keelie could find a doctor of her own kind. “Reesa told me you’d heard a rumor about a new ship. Maybe they can help.”
G’ni leaned forward with a rustling sound and pitched her voice low. “I wouldn’t be asking too many questions about that.”
“Why not?”
“Bad feelings are gathering around this ship. The rumor goes that this type of ship was seen just once before, over fifteen years ago. The people offended nuum and the Drur were forced to destroy them.”
Keelie’s chest tightened. She was not quite fifteen years old. “Were there any survivors?”
G’ni spread her hands, a gesture indicating ignorance or equivocality. “Some say no. Some say there were a few. Enslaved by the Drur, perhaps. It’s certain that no one has seen any of them for many years.”
Attendees at the retreat included Jay Lake, Louise Marley, J.C. and Barb Hendee, Susan R. Matthews, and about two dozen others, all writers (except for a couple non-writing spouses such as Kate). I knew about half of them already. There was a whiteboard with word count for the weekend, and several people also posted their progress on socks. For some reason all of the knitters present were working on socks. It got to the point that some writers noted “2300 words, 0 socks” as their progress for the day.
Apart from the writing (with early-bird, night-owl, and, um, middle-bird sessions) there were a few laid-back programming items such as How To Find An Agent and Overcoming Writers’ Block Using Runes. I skipped almost all of those in favor of more writing time. In between sessions there was much eating, with Jay and writers Barb and J.C. Hendee as special guest cooks.
The resort itself was charming and rustic, though we saw very little of it on account of the continuous rain, ranging from drizzle to downpour. It was what we’d expected, being in a rain forest and all, but it was still a great relief when the sun came out on Sunday morning and we saw the mountains on the far side of Lake Quinault for the first time. Up until that point the world apparently ended in a gray blur at the water’s edge.
One other highlight of the weekend was the Ranch House BBQ, on highway 8 at about mile post 15, which Jay has mentioned as having the best barbequeue outside of Texas. We stopped there on the way up, just to try the food even though we’d already had lunch. We stopped there again on the way down, even though we’d already had lunch. It was that good.
Jay has posted some photos from the weekend in his journal.
Big props to hosts Patrick and Honna Swenson for putting together a fabulous weekend!
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