Brisk post, though the week felt like endless labor.

(Patreon locked post here.)

Great news! I got the formal invitation: I have been accepted for the Hawthornden Literary Retreat for Creative Writers, just south of Edinburgh, in late 2023. One month in a castle! With catering! And 9 hours a day of silence! Did I mention Scotland? How soon can I buy my plane tickets?

Five days ago, I realized that all the work I had done on this grant I’ve been working on was broken: too diffuse, too many false starts, too little getting the whole thing completed. So I started over which, by the way, I don’t necessarily recommend as a way to break through block. But it worked. After 72 hours of what felt like straight work, I now have a coherent, mostly complete, 14-page (single-spaced) document that does what it needs to, though it’s hard to say whether it’s doing it well yet. Still, broken but done is better than broken and unfinished. Next tasks: the budget and the supplementary documents, working on the assessment part of this. Also, improve the description I just finished.

This is the last week of classes, but during break, of course, a lot of labor intensive departmental service kicks in. Mothers, don’t let your babies grow up to be academics.

Personally, life is, well, busy with work. But there’s been time for friends and family, and getting my hair cut and my nails done, cocktails and crime novels. But no fiction at the moment: I’ve decided to give myself the month off from fiction, except for the stuff that Gavin needs for the collection.