An Aspie at a writing retreat

This time last week I was in W Sussex at a writing retreat eating lunch, which might have been a veggie curry with rice and salad. V nice. So, how did I cope going to a retreat as an Aspie? Well, my brother and his girlfriend came with me to Waterloo as I had to pick up my ticket and didn't know where from or how. I know now it's quite easy. Then they saw me onto the train, making sure I left all right. I travelled on my own but it wasn't too bad as I read from a magazine and looked out the window most of the time. At Haslemere station I met another writer who I had hoped to travel with, but she had got on the train before me. We then were met by two other writers on the retreat and they drove us to the retreat.

There were lots of sessions scheduled for writing, so I was on my own in a room, writing. Sometimes distracted by the sights and sounds of birds around the area, esp the goldfinches. When I felt my head go light, I would get up and walk round the room, or go out to the grounds to get some air. Luckily it was lovely weather all weekend. That did the trick as it helped my head clear and I went back to write more. Break times weren't too bad as we were spread out over the floor so the noise wasn't too great. It was the meal times that were the worst for me. What do you get when you have a lot of writers in a small room? Lots of chatter and noise. I managed to cope with eating my meal and lasting half an hour afterwards. Then I would get up, saying I was going to get some quiet, and walk back to the lounge, where it was quiet until everyone finished their meal. I was tired most days as I never sleep properly elsewhere, esp with a loud dawn chorus. Lol.

Anyway, I managed to write a few chapters of Alistair's story. I think it might reach 2000 words. I wrote half a short story. Got stuck on how to continue it and what the ending is. Think I know now. And I sold 2 copies of Billy, which I took with me, just in case. Both were for autistic children,

I said I might not go again as my mum hasn't been too well and it depends on her health, but she says she'd love me to go as I enjoy it, and I want to go again. We shall see.

So, if you do go on a retreat, and have Asperger's like me, or even an issue with noise, then that is what you can do. Walk about a bit, and get some air if you can. It helped that the house we stayed in is in the middle of trees and bushes so is tranquil. The perfect place to write and get some peace.

Review of my writing goals

As nearly a quarter of the year has gone already (where did that go?) I thought I'd post a review of how I'm getting on with my goals for this year. So, here we go:

1. Republish Billy. Yes, did that in January. You can find him here https://www.amazon.co.uk/Billy-Sparkling-Socks-Rainbow-School/dp/154264853X/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1492950556&sr=1-1&keywords=billy+and+the+sparkling+socks

2. Publish 'Birds Flock Together'. Hope to do this next week once I have finished self-editing Qessa's story.

3. Publish Charlie. Hope to do this in June. The cover is currently been designed by my illustrator.

4. Publish Susie. Want to do this near end of year.

5. Write more womag stories. Am doing that.

6. Get a story accepted by Woman's Weekly. This has now changed. I now want to focus on writing for one womag at a time until I get one story published. Have had 2 rejections from them this year.

7. Get a story accepted by The Weekly News. Same as above. I now want to focus on reading and writing for The People's Friend. They still have one of mine. I am currently working on another, then will change the ending of another to send to them too.

I am also going to try writing sci-fi to expand my areas of writing and targets. Now aim to get a story accepted by TPF and a sci-fi mag by end of year.

8. I am keeping my biz expenses up to date.

So, how are your goals for this year doing so far? Let me know.

SCBWI Retreat - What I did; being brave

I forgot to say in the last post that on the Saturday afternoon I had a one-to-one with Lucy Christopher. I told her that I'd now added a new angle of the main character, Billy, being autistic. We talked about it all for 20 mins, and I had an encouraging chat with her about it. So encouraging, that the following morning, when I found myself sitting next to Rebecca Frazer of Orchard Books in the bar, I approached her about Billy. I asked her outright if she took submissions for 7+. She said yes, they concentrate on series fiction. Then I talked to her about the book and what I'd planned. She was v interested in it. I was heartened about it, and decided that weekend I wouldn't self-epublish first but query it with publishers again. We did writing in the morning. I drew family trees and shop layouts for the village Singleton. It helped me flesh out the series more.

In the afternoon we had a talk by Lucy Christoper and how she writes her books. Then more writing. By that time, my head was going a bit fuzzy so I decided to do some highlighting of Life instead of writing. Much easier on the brain.

We had dinner in the evening, which was gorgeous as ever. I think I had vegetables with cous cous, but added new potatoes and veg with it. I had fruit salad for dessert, and was the only one.  I have to say that the food they provided was delicious, and very helpful to me and my dairy intolerance. So much so, that during the afternoon when I asked if they had dairy free biccies, they took out some nice Freefrom ginger cookies, and later on some choc chip ones.

That night, we had a pj party. A few of the others did change into their nightwear. In a circle, (I was on the outer circle so I could sneak away), we had to read out something that we'd written that weekend. I read out a dark magic piece where the trees and the weather got rather windy when the character went through them to go to work.

Monday morning, and last day there. I worked on Billy, starting to get it ready to email to Rebecca. Then Rebecca gave a talk about Orchard Books. She told us what they did, what they were looking for, and what interested me was someone asked if they were interested in taking on authors with packaged series ideas themselves, and she said yes. After that, I told Rebecca my pitch for Billy, which I had just worked out, and she told me to send it to her when I'd finished it. So that is what I've been doing this week, and plan to email the synopsis, 3 chapters and outline for series next week.

All in all, I had a very heartening and successful retreat. Although I know others didn't.