This is what happens when you go to Jamaica for a writing retreat and leave your laptop sitting out on a table.
At first you think: "Cool, a frog. I like a frog." (Not as much as Holly, who spent our trip to Jamaica chasing frogs all over the villa and imploring them to be her frog friend.) Then you sit down at your laptop to work and realize things look a little different. Surely your book wasn't called "City of Frogs" before, was it? And was it about the struggles of a valiant band of frogs against the evil Lord Toad? Perhaps not, but hey, this version is pretty good, anyway.
It was hard not to be content in Jamaica. We were there with awesome people for one thing, and for a second thing, this was the view from our main room:
And this was where we worked diligently on our work stuff:
(two novels got finished on the trip, by me and Gwenda, and several short stories written or started or thought up, by Maureen and Karen and Kelly, and proposals and creative editing from![[info]](http://p-stat.livejournal.com/img/userinfo.gif)
blackholly and castellucci, and Gavin came up with an idea for a series of novels starring himself as a detective, and Christopher Rowe chased Holly around the bonfire making pterodactyl noises, which isn't technically a creative work, but was my personal vote for best moment of the trip.
And this is what we had for lunch:
And this is what we had for dinner:
Here is the shopping list that Holly made for Theo to go buy us groceries. Note that it relays both a request for " a lot of fruit" and a request for "citrus fruit" and also a request for "wack-ass fruit." Helpfully, the instruction to "get stupid with fruit" is also included.
And yes, as you probably figured out if you were reading diligently above, I have finished City of Glass, or at least the first draft. Given how long it is and how much revising I am going to have to do,
I do not FEEL done, and the fact that I have a proposal, a novella, a short story, and an essay all due RIGHT NOW isn't helping either. But when I did actually write the last line of the last chapter of the MI trilogy, I admit to briefly feeling like this:
At first you think: "Cool, a frog. I like a frog." (Not as much as Holly, who spent our trip to Jamaica chasing frogs all over the villa and imploring them to be her frog friend.) Then you sit down at your laptop to work and realize things look a little different. Surely your book wasn't called "City of Frogs" before, was it? And was it about the struggles of a valiant band of frogs against the evil Lord Toad? Perhaps not, but hey, this version is pretty good, anyway.
It was hard not to be content in Jamaica. We were there with awesome people for one thing, and for a second thing, this was the view from our main room:
And this was where we worked diligently on our work stuff:
(two novels got finished on the trip, by me and Gwenda, and several short stories written or started or thought up, by Maureen and Karen and Kelly, and proposals and creative editing from
blackholly and castellucci, and Gavin came up with an idea for a series of novels starring himself as a detective, and Christopher Rowe chased Holly around the bonfire making pterodactyl noises, which isn't technically a creative work, but was my personal vote for best moment of the trip.And this is what we had for lunch:
And this is what we had for dinner:
Here is the shopping list that Holly made for Theo to go buy us groceries. Note that it relays both a request for " a lot of fruit" and a request for "citrus fruit" and also a request for "wack-ass fruit." Helpfully, the instruction to "get stupid with fruit" is also included.
And yes, as you probably figured out if you were reading diligently above, I have finished City of Glass, or at least the first draft. Given how long it is and how much revising I am going to have to do,
I do not FEEL done, and the fact that I have a proposal, a novella, a short story, and an essay all due RIGHT NOW isn't helping either. But when I did actually write the last line of the last chapter of the MI trilogy, I admit to briefly feeling like this:
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