Donna Maree Hanson, Author, Phd in Creative Writing

It’s a long weekend here in Australia, I think in most states. One way to make sure I got some writing done was to invite my retreat buddies over for a mini retreat or Donnacon as it is affectionately known. It also kept my  mind off not being at Continuum 9, listening to N J Jemisin, who was guesting there over the weekend. Here is a link to her GOH speech.

Starting Saturday morning, the gang came over and some just visited for an afternoon. The first trick for me when I have a stretch of days to write is to decide what I’m working on. I find drafting is most productive so usually don’t revise something I’ve written unless I have a deadline. At our retreat after Conflux 9, I had to work on my uni fiction so I didn’t even try for word count. I did add to the story but I was focusing on polish.

I had a few projects to choose from. Write more of Into the Dark Glass, write a short story etc. I chose in the end to start of the sequel to Rayessa and the Space Pirates. It turned out to be a good choice. I started writing and then I discovered I’d written an outline earlier in the year so I had a map of where to go with it. Due to RSI I can’t go for massive word counts. I have to pace and I have to take breaks. So far I’ve written 12,500 words and while I haven’t finished the story arc, I’m a fair way in.

The hard part for me was the voice. I’m not using Rae’s voice and she’s funny and quirky. Also, the way I wrote Rayessa is a bit stylised. It has cliff hanger chapter endings. Although, those were put in later. Today instead of finishing the story arc, I went back to the beginning to work on Essa’s character and to make it more interesting and fun for me to read. I noticed in the last chapter I was working on I had finally found her so I went back to the beginning to expand it a bit more and to get a feel for her self-centred and armored heart. Word count wise, Rae and Essa’s adventures in space is half way there.

Lucky me, I have a writing day on Wednesday so I may push it forward a bit more.

Overall a productive weekend writing wise. My waistline has expanded in line with my word count. We’ve stuffed ourselves with food. Today, Kaaron Warren brought over homemade mint slice. And she left a stack behind.

The writing weekend was tough on my family. I’m very grateful they bore with me. They probably don’t understand about devoting yourself to writing for a number of days, but they stand back and grit their teeth.

There won’t be anymore long weekends until October. I hope to have a bit more under my belt by then.