, In my head, I'm preparing for the weekend.
Yes, it's only Monday, but my neurodiverse brain needs everything in order so that I can leave work on Friday at around two p.m. and drive down the Great Ocean Road. I also need to be doubly packed, as I'm taking off for Darwin on Sunday night.
This means double packing, one bag for the retreat, the small suitcase for Darwin, then all of the accoutrements, such as my knitting, a book or two, all of the peripherals (which get packed regardless of where I'm going, as you need all of your cords, your power pack, a mouse or two, the small keyboard and various other bits of plastic you didn't need to pack ten years ago).
I've got other things for the retreat set aside already. A couple of books for the trading table. My spare yoga mat. A bottle of gin and some tonic. I'm undecided as to whether I take the tarot cards (and then they get transferred into the Darwin bag - the guys in the call centre love that stuff.)
I'm going to take my light dressing gown - mainly so I can mooch around in it like Poor Dear Pamela in Saltburn would do. It should be the weather for it. There's something very cool about mooching about in a floral apricot kimono and sparkly pink wellington boots. And why?
Well, why not?
But my big thing about going on retreat is the question of what am I going to work on?
Of course, I could go and do the set writing workshops, which are always great - but I've done a lot of the exercises a couple of times over. I think this is my eighth retreat to date. I go because I've made friends as much as I go to write. There's something very nurturing about hanging around with a mob of like-minded women. I also have my little room off the chapel, known as a 'nun hole'. The beds are comfortable, even if you get woken up by the morning disco on the Saturday.
But I digress.
What am I going to work on?
Well, I think I'm going to pull the worst of a novel I wrote a few years ago out of the bottom draw. I've got nearly 90,000 words written. The bog-standard novel comes in at around 100,000 words.
And yes, it's a crap novel, and yes, it needs a shit ton of work done on it, but I think now might be the time.
Like 90,000 words is a bit of an achievement - and I'm curious to see what I have written.
But do I take this on a stick down to Officeworks and print out a double-spaced manuscript, so I can start marking this up - or do I read the last two chapters and try and remember where I was? Do I start a new sparkly notebook for notes on this tome - as all writer's know, a new notebook works wonders for old projects.
Or do I maybe work on something else.
After five-years in the bottom draw (or in this case, hidden on an external hard drive away from harm) maybe it's time to become a proper writer - even if it is a bad novel.
Bad novels still get published sometimes.
And like 99% of wannabee writers, I'm entitled to write my bad novel.
Maybe this is what I need to get back on the fiction horse.
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