Virtual Writing Retreat 2023

Five years ago, I took my first at-home writing retreat when airfare to North Carolina skyrocketed and Rebekah and I decide to forego a trip to visit Sarah.

Although I missed seeing family, I accomplished quite a bit of BryonySeries writing (I was finishing up a draft of the fifth installment of Before The Blood at the time). 

However, my at-home writing retreats are intense and hyper-focused almost to grueling. So the enjoyment is not in the moment but satisfying in the amount of words completed.

So now I try to take an at-home writing retreat once a year. 

This year's writing retreat starts Saturday morning and runs through next week and the following Sunday afternoon, whereupon, I will return to reality and tackle some homework.

Among the retreating, I will tell a story on October 18, lead a WriteOn Joliet Zoom meeting on October 19, and participate in a local author expo on October 21.

Otherwise, I will be less present to the world and respond to messages very slowly.

The goal is to complete (or come very, very close) to completing the BryonySeries guidebook by the end of the retreat.

But I am a long, long way from home right now (cue Foreigner).

Wish me luck!

An Ambitious Project

Starting Saturday, I will finally use a week of my accrued vacation to...new quite sure yet.

You see, it's been a year of emergencies for our family, so most of our plans for this year since haven't happened.

Now, I have an idea on how I'd like to spend that week.

I'd like to get down to Raleigh for thirty-six hours with Timothy to see my father (while I still have a father to see) and see Sarah and her family, too.

However, it's uncertain yet if Timothy and Daniel have to go out of town for business yet.

Faith, who has cancer and needs medicine twice a day, can't be left alone. And Rebekah, who is going through some health challenges and needs to see two specialists, also should not be left alone.

These background challenges make for a row of these ??? when it comes to solidly planning next week.

However.

Assuming that ALL of the hours (and hopefully none) turn into emergencies, I have a novel I'd like to write.

Yes, you read that correctly. 

I'd like to write an entire novel - in one week. And as long as I have at least four solid days to write, or a few good hours every day, I think I can get an extremely rough draft done of one novel completed.

The book is divided into four sections.

The structure is atypical - but not untried by other writers.

And it's a small-ish novel, nothing like, say Before The Blood.

It's a standalone novel and loosely, very loosely. attached to the other BryonySeries books. Yes, I have title. Yes, I have a synopsis.

But I probably won't share any of these until the novel is completed.

I've also begun the third and last book in the BryonySeries Limbo trilogy: House on Top of the Hill. 

But I'll set that novel aside next week in favor of this ambitious project.

Happy Monday - and wish me luck!

When The Author's Away, The Mice Will Play

So on September 21, I recapped my my 2021 At-Home Writing Retreat Number One and promised to show you how Uncle Barty and Bertrand the Mouse spent the week when my mind was in Munsonville working on Call of the Siren.

Here, finally, is that long-awaited post showing some highlights of their week. 

Uncle Barty introduced the newly regenerated Bertrand to his mission in life - to share the joys of reading with children.

And that mission was much bigger than Bertrand had imagined. He can't wait to make his own Bertrand books and continue the legacy. 

In the meantime, Uncle Barty took the time to read the current books to young Bertrand.

Uncle Barty and Bertrand also visited some of their mouse friends.

And they hung out with two other BryonySeries characters: Larry the Llama and Snowbell.

They explored high places.

And they explored basement places.

They raided the refrigerator.

They raided the pantry.

And they raided the cat food.

This made Faith very unhappy.

But they did find her later to apologize, and Faith forgave them.

And they had a great time playing King of the Mountain together.

That tired out the two mice...

...and the cat. 

But it wasn't all fun and games because...

...Uncle Barty made certain Bertand wouldn't fall behind in his lessons.

For more antics of Uncle Barty and Bertrand the Mouse, follow Bertrand's Instagram page.

For more information about the BryonySeries (including where to buy Bertrand's books, visit bryonyseries.com. 

Or check out Bertrand's books on Amazon.

Still on Retreat

I am one of just twenty writers from all over the United States (and Canada) participating in a virtual writing retreat, hosted by Ralph Walker of the #5amwritersclub.

I will recap this retreat next week when I have more time.as I'm dashing into a sessioin.

But I will say that I am having a wonderful time. I have also learned some valuable information to bring back to the writers at WriteOn Joliet.

The feedback has been terrific.

Oh, and Bertrand the Mouse is having a great time, too. 

And I didn't even have to pay for his spot.

The "Other" Writers Group

One of the goals my WriteOn Joliet co-leader Tom Hernandez and I set for last year was to be more "ecumenical" - in other words, to pop into a couple other local writers groups at least once.

Of course, when we set that goal, we had no idea what would transpire in 2020.

Neverthless, I did make one Zoom meeting of the writers group in New Lenox (and the leader's been so kind in patiently inviting me).

And I've also found some writing fellowship with a group called the 5 A.M. Writers Club on Twitter. (#5amwritersclub).

I stumbled upon this one quite by accident.

Some of my followers on my BryonySeries Twitter account are other authors. And as we talked, I discovered this group. A few of these members lived on the east coast and had met in person a few times before COVID hit. So they moved to Zoom and opened the meetings up to whoever wanted to join them.

I was one of them.

The whole purpose of the group is to write for an hour every day, starting at 5 a.m., before the rest of your responsiblities begins. Everyone doesn't make this every day; life happens. And people make it at different times of the day, depending when 5 a.m. occurs in their part of the world.

The only time this becomes a bit rough for me is every three weeks. That's when we meet on a Friday over Zoom. Because their 5 a.m. is my 4 a.m. and that meet often comes right on the heels of WriteOn Joliet's meeting the previous evening - and Friday's are very full for me anyway.

So I often check in late - and in the case of this past Friday when I was dealing with a new, temporary medication that made me tired - not at all.

But the group has brought new connections and new opportunities.

We had a holiday party over Zoom between Christmas and new year. We're having a virtual writing retreat at the end of next month (just got my schedule yesterday - I'm super stoked!), and I'm co-leading a meeting on self-publishing in August as I may be the only author in this group that self-publishes. The others have traditional contracts with traditional publishers or they are in the querying stages.

Yes, 2020 was definitely a challenging year filled with tragedies for far, far too many people.

But there's something remarkable about the human spirit that just doesn't allow tragedy to get the final word.

And even among last year's horribleness, tiny green shoots of hope and new life are edging their way out.

Illustration by Kathleen Rose Van Pelt for "Bryony."

Kansas, Priest Shortages, and Russian Immigrants

Once a month for quite a few years now, I lead a fiction workshop. The cost is a $10 donation to Big Brothers Big Sisters of Will and Grundy Counties.

What makes this group different from the critique group I co-lead (WriteOn Joliet) is the opportunity to spend an intense several hours focusing on certain aspects of plot, world or character building, dialogue, etc.

For instance, we've spent several months working on character perspective or structured outlining. It mostly depends on the needs of the participants.

This past Friday was a jumble of topics all relating to a certain character in one man's novel.

Lats month, I realized this particular author, who has written and self-published many books, has never written a male protagonist, so I challenged him to consider it for a future book.

He arrived last week with an outline in hand for a novel that tells the back story of the brother of one of his protagonists. The brother is a Catholic priest, the adopted son of Russian immigrants who settled in Kansas, who has retired at age 65 and moved into his sister's house.

My first question was, "Why Kansas?"

The author had no concrete answer.

So while I was expressing my disbelief over Russian immigrants, who were most likely Eastern Orthodox, making their home and starting up a business in Kansas (all the while thinking that I should probably look this up), this author's wife, who also attends, did, in fact, pick up her phone and then laugh out loud.

She had found plenty of posts about the migration of Russian-Germans to Kansas. Most of these immigrants were not Easter Orthodox, but Christians of other faiths, largely (but not limited to) the Mennonite population.

Here is the first line (and a link, for the curious) from a post from the Kansas Historical Society.

ONE HUNDRED years ago several thousand German-speaking people from Russia settled on lands in Kansas and left a considerable impact upon the history of the state. 

https://www.kshs.org/p/the-migration-of-the-russian-germans-to-kansas/13242

Then we also researched and discussed priest shortages, retirement age for priests (and the process for it), and the unlikely possibility that this pastor and parish priest simply "decided" to retire at age 65 and move into the house of his choice.

We've spent entire meetings (or good chunks of them) working on rural Scotland in the eighteenth century, how far boiling spaghetti sauce travels if left unattended in a pot, and the development of a rich female teen when the protagonist meets her for the first time by bumping into her.

It probably sounds like a lot of effort, and it is.

But the goal is to create a world and characters so seamless the reader forgets he's reading.

For the writer, this process is fun, informative, and it allows us to steep ourselves in this really lovely part of our imaginations.

And, at least once month, we get to steep ourselves in the building block imaginations of other writers.

Illustration by Kathleen Rose Van Pelt for "Bryony."

Almost Nine Days Off (And What I Did In That Time)

Friday: Left work and headed straight to WriteOn Joliet's anthology release party, arriving half an hour late. (More on the release party later this week).

Saturday and Sunday: Caught up on BryonySeries marketing and attended Divine Liturgy

Monday through Wednesday: Worked on Before the Blood

Thanksgiving Day: Attended Divine Liturgy, entertained family, worked on Before the Blood

Friday: Worked on Before the Blood.

Saturday: Coffee date with Timothy to work on the second Cornell Dyer story and plot out the third, worked on Before the Blood.

Sunday: Divine Liturgy, work, mailed out one bill and assembled and mailed eight notes (I'm pen pals with my grandkids and send mail to them on a monthly basis).

I did keep up (ish) with email, walked and exercised every day (although yoga and lifting weights fell off Friday and Saturday).

With the exception of posting a Bible verse, "good mornings" on two sights, wishing the daily "happy birthday," and approving new members of Joliet Connect (and responding to comments), I stayed off social media.

I did watch three entire episodes of Scarlet Heart with Rebekah and finished off season seven of Archer with Daniel, but TV was still no more than one hour a day (and not every day).

Mostly, though, I wrote, about 50 (estimated) hours worth of writing.

I didn't quite finish everything on my list, so some of that will still be sprinkled over the coming week.

But it was, overall, a great week. I have not had this much time off since I was a kid. Even the reporter I saw on Sunday commented on how rested I looked.

Toward the end of Saturday, my muse started to dwindle, my signal that it was time to move on and do other things.

Usually, I'm wishing for "one more day off." This time, it was the right amount. I'm ready to return to work and tackle those projects again.

Or, at least, this is my view this Monday morning at 5:14 a.m. with a cup of dark roast (trying out new brand, thank you, Daniel) beside me. Have a great day vampire fans (and the rest of you, too).

PS: Timothy Baran and Rebekah Baran prepared the spread below for WriteOn Joliet's anthlogy release party at The Book Market in Crest Hill.

Writer Retreat

So I held off posting yesterday because the muse was working. I realized this morning I hadn't posted at all.

I have a couple days off to write and, thankfully, thus far, said muse is cooperating.

Where some writers might post photos of the retreat house, updates on the work-in-progress, and avant-garde shops they're visiting, I'm not doing any of the above. The whole point of a writers retreat is to, well, WRITE.

So no photos.

No updates.

And I'm certainly not browsing any shops.

And that is all. Before the Blood is calling my name...