I've been in the mountains of western North Carolina at the Wildacres Writers Retreat. A beautiful place that looks like this...
In a bark-sided guest house, down a steep hill...
Staying in a sumptuous guest suite...
Which I'd leave to walk up long, stone steps
where I spent hours pondering the vagaries of Genre Fiction with these wonderful folks...
Writing and learning about writing is very stressful. It's tiring and thankless work. A week like this one can be downright traumatic and not just for the new author. Even the strongest writer has broken under the intense scrutiny of their peers.
By Thursday night, there wasn't a one of us who hadn't retreated into our "happy place," that fantasy world that so often soothes the frazzled mind. We fled into our pasts, seeking out those easy, carefree days when all things were possible. Those good old days of yore- when a man was a man...
a horse was well, a horse...
And the faculty...well, they still lost what faculties they had...
I'm telling you- This week was hard, especially on the younger ones...
But we all soldiered our loads and went on...The students wrote and read their works aloud...
Because if they knew what would happen if they didn't- If they whined or shirked their writerly responsibilities, or so much as forgot to wear their nametags, the Woman With The Whip would wipe the smiles right off their little,cherubic faces...
It's not easy being a writer...but then, I do suppose it beats the alternative...
1 comment:
...but where have you been this week?
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