It won’t be long before I depart Hot Springs Village with three friends and colleagues for a three-day experiment in productivity. We’re driving to Eureka Springs to spend three days and nights at The Writers’ Colony at Dairy Hollow in an attempt to set fire to our creativity and productivity as writers. Each of us will have a private room and writing space. We will gather for meals and, perhaps, for evening libations, to discuss our work and our progress. And, I hope, we will talk about our successes and our failures and what triggers each. Above all, I hope we share what motivates us to write; whether it’s pain or desire or regret, I want to know what spurs my fellow writers to write. I think I’m about ready to reveal more of me in my writing than I’ve ever done before. It’s probably nothing of much import to most; I won’t reveal anything truly earth-shattering; I’m not gay, I’m not a transvestite, I don’t practice cannibalism, I’m not a pedophile, I’m not addicted to crack cocaine, etc., etc. My truths probably are evident in my writing; just not to anyone else but me. Hah!
My wife will have a breather from me in general while I’m away. My sister-in-law will have a breather from my silliness and from the wound-up-guy who tries to fake mellowness while I’m away. Other people, the few with whom I regularly interact, won’t notice.
The great American novel is not just a few days away, but a better version of what I’ve been writing is…I hope.
Three days here, then back home. I look forward to your book, Juan. I’ve told a lot of people about your ingenious course. Write it!
That is so cool! Reminds me of Percy, Byron and Mary Shelley. Great things and thoughts get cooked in groups like that. Are you bringing mushrooms or weed?
……………………just passing through….keep on trucking?
Important to find groups, or what are sharing snaps of time for thinking, talking and writing.
Cooking up a book with a colleague of mine. Not anything best seller-like, John. Just a text on Interdisciplinary Teaching and Learning. He teaches Psychology and I teach Literature, and so we combined both disciplines into one at 6 college credit hour course. I think I’ve told you about this. So, we’ve been doing this for about 5 years now, so we figure we have enough data now and experience to begin writing about strengths and weaknesses of such learning / teaching.
So dialogue and coffee meetings at Eco’s cafe. We’ll see what we can do. But you do right~ Whether writing alone or with another, the dialogue is the fermenting yeast that’s needed in the brew
Yes, just four of us. There’s one other writer in the main building and another in the building where we are, but we’ve not seen him or her.
Sounds very cool. So it’s not a larger group, just three friends doing a retreat?