Hepcats Writers Retreat

The 2013 Hepcats Writers Retreat. There may have been some alcohol involved.

This weekend was the Hepcats Writers Retreat run by the Heroic Fantasy Quarterly editorial staff. This year I managed to write nearly 4,000 words over the weekend, making it entirely successful for that reason alone. Retreat attendees all had different goals — in some cases, outlining a new work, a husband-and-wife collaboration that bore some great fruit, plenty of editing, and lots of words.

Also, marvelous food, excellent conversation, much laughter, and overall some good times.

After a six-hour drive and checking in to the bungalows, I decided to treat myself to an afternoon at the natural history museum on the OU campus. For five bucks I got dinosaurs, arrowheads, and Oklahoma history. Seriously awesome. They have this gigantic dinosaur head (a Triceratops -type dinosaur) that had been stored under the OU stadium for years and now is on display. Also, now I know the difference between Clovis points and Folsom point arrowheads.

Then it was time to workshop. The first night I got about 300 words down on Bandit Girls, mostly backfilling what I needed to do.

Then Saturday, I hunkered down and wrote. A cold front blew in, so any outside temptations were vanquished immediately, and I just stayed head down and wrote. At dinner, we all gathered to eat some amazing food (coq au vin, white beans and rosemary, scalloped potatoes, you know, the usual poor writer fare), drink, tell tales, and read from our work.

All in all, it was an excellent weekend with plenty of progress. I’m now at about 46,000 words, which puts me at roughly the half-way mark.

Go, Hepcats!