All this week – and the last, and the next – I’m taking part in The Guardian Masterclass Summer Writers’ Retreat. I didn’t know what to expect when I signed up, and it’s expensive. (On my budget it’s expensive.) So I was nervous about wasting my money. I hoped as a minimum I’d get a push to move on with one of my novels.
It’s my science fiction novel that I’ve chosen to work on this summer. Elin’s Story, my historical road movie, is still maturing like a fine old cheese, on the cool back shelf of the larder of my mind.
We are eleven days into the writers’ retreat programme at the time of writing, and it has exceeded expectations by a very good distance, and would be cheap at twice the price.
Time management has never been my strong point, however, so some things have gone by the wayside. Like preparing and writing this blog post in advance. Consider this belated excuse – I’m publishing it a day after my schedule – as my post for this week. Maybe next week I’ll get my act together long enough to share a brief review of the programme.
At the end of next week I’m going to be juggling the concluding days of the retreat with attendance at the 2022 Stockholm Writers’ Festival. Just the cherry on the cake. So my post two weeks down the line will probably be something brief about that.
Then I’ll need another holiday!
The illustration is based on a screen grab of the Zoom grid of retreat attendees, artified in Photoshop to preserve anonymity, and combined with some of the Masterclass promo illustrations. It was easier to spend time making the illustration than writing more for this post.
