Happy Valentines Day! Days 6 and 7 of Wayward Wormhole writing retreat are accomplished. All this fun is taking place in Oistins, Barbados. And, yes, I missed a day of blogging. (We all knew that would happened, didn’t we?) Yesterday was pretty exhausting, and then I had homework in the evening, so I was too sleepy to tell you about my day off from workshops.
Sightseeing Harrison’s Cave and Hunte Gardens
Roomie booked us a tour of a couple of the big sightseeing attractions here, Harrison’s Cave and Hunte Gardens. At the tour bus pick up point, we connected with our week-two instructor, Premee Mohamed, who had just arrived for the workshop on Thursday and wanted to see the sights, too. The ride whisked us away from the flat Oistins area and up into the zig-zag mountainous region. The cave is quite a grand operation with a tram ride through the cave. Barbados has a limestone and coral geological structure, which is unique from the volcanic Caribbean islands.
From the cave visitors’ center, a bus took us over to the Hunte Gardens, which is built around the ruin of an old colonial house. The garden encompasses multiple levels as visitors wind their way down sixty-fours steps of a ravine—a beautiful setting for the tropical plants and birds.
More Work on Opening Lines
Karen Lord, the week-one instructor, meet with us this morning to workshop an opening-lines exercise. (I read everyone else’s last night, after walking around in the heat all day!) We produced some wonderful story “hooks” that introduced a main character and established their connections with other characters, the world around them, and salient issues. Also, openings need to communicate setting and genre. Another teacher pointed out that openings also must quickly tell the reader who, what, when, where, and why.
The whole group went out for another leisurely meal at Bean and Bagel. Food excellent. Recommend the pumpkin fritters. Unfortunately for us, the last couple of days have been a national celebration related to the recent election here. So on Friday many things were closed, and today was a big jamboree in the park, which snarled up traffic all afternoon. (And perhaps contributed to short staffing.)The two-mile trip to the restaurant was quite the journey.
Tomorrow, I finally get some feedback on my novella!
Meanwhile, enjoy yourself with my latest novel, The Talking Cure.
“The Talking Cure is a marvelous story—an Agatha Christie-style murder mystery infused with a strong sense of the Weird… and a hearty dose of magic on the side. It’s ideal for all fans of the sinister, the surprising, and the strange.”—Cherie Priest, award-winning author of Boneshaker
Find The Talking Cure at these fine locations:
Left Bank Books in St. Louis
Do you spend your vacation chilling or hard-core sightseeing? Or a bit of both? Comment on the blog.
If you enjoyed this blog about my travels, you might like to read about me sightseeing in Louisville, KY.
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Wolfhearted is also available as an Audible audiobook, here.
Earlier this year, St. Louis Writers Guild published Weird STL, an anthology celebrate the strange, spooky, and just plain wonderful stories of our hometown. This volume of short stories, poems, a play, and essays includes a Sean Joye universe short story, “Big Magick.” Joseph Arwald, one of the baddies from The Big Cinch, tells us what really happened to the Ferris Wheel from the St. Louis 1904 World’s Fair.
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