Last night I arrived at Minnedosa, to start the 2019 edition of my annual week-long writing retreat.
Goals this year:
- 2,000 words a day, or about 15,000 words, in the first draft of Translations.
- Sub-goal: Get to the ending.
- Photos of the Milky Way.
- Photos, generally; there are a few spots I’d like to get to. The Canadian prairie is photogenic, and I want to capture that.
- Ride my bike a lot, and also go kayaking a few times. The weather forecast seems to agree with this plan.
- Read at least a couple of the books I brought: Provenance by Ann Leckie (I’m about ¾ of the way through, so that should work out); The Buried Giant by Kazuo Ishiguro; Dreyer’s English by Benjamin Dreyer; and The Knight by Gene Wolfe (because it’s a tradition, apparently, that I read Wolfe while I’m at the cabin).
I’m also due in Winnipeg for my nephew’s birthday party, which means I’ll be able to pick up the copy of Michael Swanwick’s The Iron Dragon’s Mother that I pre-ordered in (checks notes) (…these notes are illegible) February? maybe. And a friend is camping at Clear Lake starting mid-week, so I’ll probably go bother him for an afternoon or something.
As my darling wife is wont to say, “Write faster, Johanneson.”
Header image: last night, reading Provenance on the deck with a glass of Writer’s Tears.