Penna and I are just resurfacing after our annual writing retreat. Like last year, this was a virtual retreat. We both use Teams at work, and we decided to take advantage of its interactive features for this year's event. One of the many highlights was Penna's use of virtual backgrounds to set the mood. She saved the best for last—a view of the transporter room on the USS Enterprise. I loved the analogy that we were beaming ourselves into the worlds of our stories.
For a retreat that started on September 8, Star Trek Day, we should have expected that Star Trek plot bunnies—or perhaps I should call them tribbles—managed to sneak into a retreat meant to drill down on our stories. Neither one of us wrote in a Star Trek fandom last year. What psychic message did the tribbles send us? The answer may come your way in next year's crop of stories.
Star Trek wasn't the only stowaway. An even more significant passenger was Shakespeare, or a misquoted version of him. Before starting the retreat, Mozzie reminded us, "The plan's the thing." He knew what he was talking about. This year we hatched an agenda that turned out to be so successful, we want to repeat it next year.
We started by summarizing our writing goals, the status of our current series, and the items on our bucket list. They led to a discussion of classes we'd taken and ideas for new series. The highlight of the following day was analyzing works we'd read by other writers and relating them to our stories. That concept stoked the flames for reviewing favorite concepts in our existing stories as well as lessons learned. So much to discuss! We could have spent days both on that topic and on the analysis of other writers.
The final day was reserved for tossing around ideas for future stories, an addictive game we call bunnyball. Of the seven retreats we've held, we agreed we had the most productive brainstorming ever. We're attributing it to the earlier discussions. By the time we got to bunnyball, our minds were bursting with new thoughts and approaches.
We've now beamed back to our homes but we're excited to start implementing those ideas. Thank you, Penna, for a fabulous adventure in storytelling!
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