In many ways I suppose this could be a good weekend for reading. But that’s not what I’m supposed to be doing…
I’m at a writers retreat. I’m supposed to be writing.
I’m here in a house with eight fellow word wranglers. There are laptops everywhere. The floor is strewn with cables. Wine is being mulled…
This afternoon the house was a veritable hive of activity; a silence weighted with productivity, punctuated by the clacking of keyboards.
Before I can progress with writing, however, I need to figure out what’s going to happen next in my WIP. And I concluded earlier in the week that maybe I should read back over what has gone before to see whether anything helpful jumps out at me.
So that’s what I did this afternoon — read back over some of what has gone before. (Which, to my gratification, wasn’t as awful as I thought it might have been.)
My plan for the weekend is to become unstuck. I’d love to plough through the current scene-of-difficulty and navigate my way towards the end…
Having said that, I do like the idea of lying back with a book all weekend. What an indulgence. I brought my kindle — books! — maybe (if I can’t get unstuck) it will be a good weekend for reading after all…
What’s your plan for the weekend? Will you be doing any reading?
***
This post was inspired by today’s wanafriday theme, which was to launch from the opening line of Big Stone Gap by Adriana Trigiani: “This will be a good weekend for reading.”
Read some of the other interpretations of this theme:
Janice Heck – A good weekend for reading (in which she also talks about the book, Big Stone Gap)
E V Gregory 
Reading can help you get unstuck, especially rereading what you’ve already written.
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I hope so, Elizabeth… except I should have done the reading BEFORE I started on the wine… might have to do it all again!
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Gotta love those retreats! I’ll be on a similar one next month…already can’t wait. Good luck soaking in those creative vibes and letting them get you unstuck!
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Thanks, Siri… starting to make progress I think. At least I now have a plan for the afternoon. Onwards! Upwards!
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I *so* wish I could go on a writing retreat. I just don’t know enough local writers in RL to do that with.
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Erin, that’s soooo sad. 😦
Writing retreats can be so productive. They can also involve a lot of drinking and chatting. Both of which can lead to epiphanies!
I find getting away with even just one other person fantastic. Really helps with the discipline. Thanks so much for stopping by.
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You’re welcome, Ellen. Maybe someday I’ll get a chance to go on a retreat.
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I hope you’re having a good retreat. Sounds like fun 🙂
What I really should be doing this weekend is working on this week’s writing goals. I do expect to do a little bit of reading, but not fiction. I’ve been going through a rulebook for a roleplaying game which I think would be a pretty good fit for a fantasy world I’ve been kicking around as a place to write some new drafts of stories and stuff.
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Yep, the retreat is fun so far — need to get back to work though! New roleplaying game sounds like fun…
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Yeah, I haven’t played one in ages, but I’ve been collecting and reading different games for a long time because they’re fun and inspiring. I’m thinking it might be cool to run a game in the same setting I’m planning to write some fiction in, so long as I don’t try to impose any kind of story on the players, and I don’t steal the players’ ideas and plans and use them in my stories 🙂
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Our game is being run in the world our DM is writing in… In your case, I’d have thought players might give you some good ideas!
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I’m sure they’d come up with great ideas, but I don’t think I’d feel right about using them since they’d be ideas I didn’t come up with. But maybe that’s what happens when writers bounce their ideas off each other. I don’t have anyone I really do that with and I just keep my ideas to myself, so I don’t really know what other writers do when they talk to each other about their stuff.
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Bouncing ideas off fellow writers can be quite helpful actually. We’ve been doing some that this weekend.
And allowing people/experiences/random incidents to inspire you is fair game for a writer. 🙂
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Hope you’re enjoying the retreat and that you get unstuck sooner rather than later 🙂
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Thanks, Kim – having a great time, thanks. Starting to work things out… Mulled wine can help. 😉
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