{"id":1025,"date":"2018-10-05T22:13:49","date_gmt":"2018-10-06T05:13:49","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/briancebuhl.com\/?p=1025"},"modified":"2018-10-05T22:13:49","modified_gmt":"2018-10-06T05:13:49","slug":"writing-excuses-cruise-2018-overview","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/briancebuhl.com\/?p=1025","title":{"rendered":"Writing Excuses Cruise 2018 – Overview"},"content":{"rendered":"

I’ve talked about Worldcon and the Writer’s Digest conference.\u00a0 Now it’s time to talk about the event I was looking forward to more than any other this year.\u00a0 Let’s get into the Writing Excuses Cruise.<\/p>\n

Tonight, I’m going to talk about the cruise in general and a basic overview of the writing retreat and how I felt about it.\u00a0 Tomorrow and the next day, I’m going to two specific topics that were covered during the retreat.\u00a0 The first post will be Writing the Other, the second post will be about Branding.<\/p>\n

Actually, let me rephrase that.\u00a0 My plan is to write about those topics.\u00a0 Given the current events, I might push one or more of those out a day so that I can write about Brett Kavanaugh while that topic is still timely.\u00a0 I already have him on my list of subjects to talk about this month.\u00a0 I had hoped to his interview process would go a little longer, but it seems that some people are in a rush.<\/p>\n

Real life looms and threatens to push in, but I’m not going to dwell on politics tonight.\u00a0 I’m not going to think about supreme court nominees or how I feel about what’s been going on in current events.\u00a0 Tonight, let’s talk about really pleasant things like a writing retreat that takes place on a cruise ship.<\/p>\n

Neither Melissa nor I had ever been on a cruise before and we were looking forward to that as much as I was looking forward to hanging out with the cast of the Writing Excuses podcast<\/a> and meeting other writers.\u00a0 We paid for the whole thing almost a year in advance.\u00a0 Everything was set up.\u00a0 We just had to get there.<\/p>\n

I already wrote about the slashed tires<\/a>.\u00a0 We discovered those the morning we were to fly to Houston.\u00a0 We got up that Friday, prepared to go to work, and then discovered that I was going to need to work from home for a while.\u00a0 Not a very auspicious start to our vacation.<\/p>\n

It got worse.\u00a0 Bad weather in Texas began to impact flights.\u00a0 We were supposed to take off just before midnight, transferring at Dallas before going on to Houston.\u00a0 As I watched the Discord channels and other attendees talking about their travel problems, I kept seeing people report how their flights were getting canceled and they were getting rerouted and delayed.\u00a0 I had the American Airlines page open and I kept refreshing to check the flight status.<\/p>\n

The bad news came in the late afternoon.\u00a0 They’d canceled our flight into Dallas and American Airlines decided to reschedule us to fly out of Sacramento around 11:15AM on Saturday, putting us in Houston in the early evening.\u00a0 I contacted them and told them that Melissa and I were supposed to go to NASA Saturday morning.\u00a0 American Airlines surprised me.\u00a0 They booked us with Delta when they couldn’t get us to Houston on time themselves.\u00a0 The change in flights meant that we needed to go through Atlanta, and we needed to head to the airport as soon as I was off the phone.<\/p>\n

The kids dropped us off.\u00a0 We got our bags checked.\u00a0 We endured the usual travel traumas (I’m not comfortable flying, though I’m getting better at it).\u00a0 Neither one of us slept very well on the plane, but we made it!\u00a0 We even landed in the airport that was closest to the hotel, making that leg of the trip that much easier.<\/p>\n

Once we reached the hotel, we were in good hands.\u00a0 The Writing Excuses staff made the rest of the trip easy for us.\u00a0 We got signed in, got some swag along with an instruction pamphlet, and before we knew it, we were enjoying the retreat.<\/p>\n

I’m going to intentionally skip over some details.\u00a0 For example, we made it in time to enjoy the NASA tour, and though we’d been up all night and traveling, we learned quite a bit during the tour, and we had a good time.\u00a0 There’s quite a bit I could say about the NASA, but I’ll just give a couple of details which had more to do with the experience than the tour itself.<\/p>\n

First, we got rained on.\u00a0 The tour involved riding on what I can best describe as the illegitimate love child between a train and a golf cart.\u00a0 While going between the various stops at NASA, rained dumped on us, soaking me in particular because of where I was sitting.\u00a0 It was okay, though, because I had a jacket.\u00a0 I thought it was kind of funny.<\/p>\n

The second detail about the NASA trip was Mary Robinette’s vast NASA knowledge.\u00a0 We had a trained tour guide giving us information as we went, and Mary Robinette was able to gracefully take the microphone and add extra value as we went.\u00a0 It was impressive.\u00a0 Not only did Mary Robinette demonstrate a broad and deep knoweldge of NASA, she was able to deliver the information naturally, and without stepping on the tour guide.\u00a0 The tour guide appreciated Mary Robinette’s contributions, and said that she learned things that she’d be adding to her future presentations.<\/p>\n

That’s the retreat in a nutshell.\u00a0 Knowledgeable people taught with skill and grace throughout the trip.\u00a0 I learned tons from the lessons, both from material presented and from the way the teachers and staff conducted themselves.<\/p>\n

Even before we got on the boat, we had a full schedule.\u00a0 The night before we were to board the ship, Brandon Sanderson taught a class on characterization.\u00a0 It was good stuff, and I took plenty of notes.<\/p>\n

Once on the boat, we had classes in the conference room most of the days we were at sea.<\/p>\n

I’m going to talk about the schedule now, and I don’t want to give the impression that we didn’t have time to play or to enjoy the cruise itself.\u00a0 We had plenty of time.\u00a0 Melissa and I quickly discovered that we could go to deck 4 and walk outside, enjoying the breeze and the view of the ocean.\u00a0 It was also the straightest path to take us from one end of the ship to the other, a trip we had to make frequently.\u00a0 Our stateroom and the conference room were both on deck 2, but the conference room as at the front of the ship while our room was almost as far aft as you could go.<\/p>\n

A typical day at sea involved getting up around dawn and then heading up to the buffet on deck 11 called the Windjammer.\u00a0 Some of us lovingly called it the Windcrammer, for that’s where we most often went during breakfast and lunch to cram food into our faces.\u00a0 The first class started at 9AM and went for about an hour and a half.\u00a0 There’d be a brief break, then another class leading up to lunch time.\u00a0 As I said before, Melissa and I took all of our lunches at the buffet.\u00a0 From 1PM to 3PM there’d be another class, then another break, then usually another class.\u00a0 Most nights there’d be some kind of activity or class from 7PM to just before 8PM.\u00a0 Every night at 8PM, we’d go to the main dining room for dinner.\u00a0 It was assigned seating that put us with different classmates and potentially an instructor every night.\u00a0 After dinner, starting at 10PM, there were games in the conference room that ran into the wee hours of the morning.<\/p>\n

That’s a pretty full schedule.\u00a0 It’s deceptive, though, because there are plenty of gaps in there to do other things.\u00a0 Also, if you wanted to skip a class, you could.<\/p>\n

Along with the classes, there were daily challenges.\u00a0 In any given 24 hour period, if you wrote pi (3,412 words), you could put your name on the Pi Board.\u00a0 If your name was already there, you’d put a check next to your name.\u00a0 Whoever wrote pi the most at the end of the cruise would win a prize.<\/p>\n

There was also a board for keeping track of your total word count.\u00a0 Like the Pi Challenge, whoever wrote the most words during the cruise won a prize.\u00a0 For the record, I wrote around 7500 words that week.\u00a0 The winner wrote more than 30,000 words.<\/p>\n

In addition to those challenges, there was another that changed every day.\u00a0 If you succeeded at that posted challenge, you put your name on the page beneath it and collected a pirate coin.\u00a0 I enjoyed these challenges because they appealed to my competitive nature.\u00a0 At the end of the cruise, I was in a three way tie for the most pirate coins.\u00a0 I won an eye patch and a signed book by Dan Wells.<\/p>\n

I think I’ve given a pretty good description of how the retreat worked, but I haven’t really talked about how I felt going through it.\u00a0 Now that I’ve been home for most of a week, I think I can talk about it.<\/p>\n

The retreat challenged me more than any other convention I’ve been to.\u00a0 Some of it had to do with the schedule, but there were some factors that had nothing to do with the cruise or the retreat.\u00a0 For example, Melissa and I got sick half way through our vacation.\u00a0 We didn’t suffer from seasickness, though we did feel the sway of the boat from time to time.\u00a0 We caught a cold, either from my coworker that came in when she shouldn’t have, or from the plane on the way to Texas.\u00a0 We weren’t so sick that we had to miss out on anything, but the sore throat, sneezing, runny nose, and congestion sapped my energy, and it made it difficult for me to engage with other people as much as I wanted to.<\/p>\n

Being sick made it difficult to get enough rest.\u00a0 We needed to get up early each day, and I wanted to stay out and play or write as much as I could each night.\u00a0 But then there were other factors that robbed us of chances to get a full night’s sleep.\u00a0 The first night, the TV in our room turned itself on and started blasting.\u00a0 The remote would not turn it off.\u00a0 \u00a0Fumbling around in the dark at 2AM, I could not find a power button on the TV itself.\u00a0 After a few minutes, I wound up unplugging it and collapsing back in bed.<\/p>\n

The second night, again around 2AM, there was a “Bravo Bravo” announcement over the loudspeaker.\u00a0 I don’t think they meant to issue the announcement to us.\u00a0 Lots of people on the boat slept through it, but it startled Melissa and I awake.\u00a0 We found out later that the alarm had to do with a fire in one of the engines.\u00a0 That sounds scarier than it is, because there’s 6 or 8 engines on the boat, and they never need more than 3 at any given time.<\/p>\n

With the sickness and lack of sleep, and surrounded by all of these really talented individuals, my mind decided that what I really needed was a huge dollop of self-doubt.\u00a0 I began to feel more awkward than usual while trying to interact with people.\u00a0 I felt like I didn’t have anything to contribute.\u00a0 Why would these people want to be my friend?\u00a0 What was so special about me or what I write?\u00a0 What did I have to offer?<\/p>\n

I think I managed to contain the ugly feelings, but it was hard.\u00a0 It was the hardest part of the whole experience.<\/p>\n

On the days where we were in port, we didn’t have very many classes, if any.\u00a0 Those days, people could stay on the boat if they wanted to, or they could go to shore like Melissa and I did.\u00a0 The first stop was Roatan, the second Belize, and the third stop Cozumel.\u00a0 At all three destinations, Melissa and I went on excursions.<\/p>\n

We had a really great time.\u00a0 Just like with the NASA excursion, I’m going to skip over most of the details, and just give the highlights.<\/p>\n

In Roatan, we got to learn about chocolate making, and we got to taste some locally made rum.\u00a0 We liked it so much, we bought a bottle.\u00a0 We had a good time in Roatan.<\/p>\n

In Belize, we were taken on a bus about 45 minutes away from city.\u00a0 Then we transferred to a speed boat which took us 20 or 30 minutes up a river.\u00a0 After that, we walked briefly through the jungle to see the\u00a0Lamanai Mayan ruins<\/a>.\u00a0 It kept threatening to rain, and we almost didn’t get to climb the high temple.\u00a0 That is to say, we did get to climb it, and the heights and slick rock terrified me.\u00a0 We took bunches of pictures.\u00a0 We had a good time on this excursion.<\/p>\n

In Cozumel, it was hot and humid.\u00a0 We went on a tour which and at first, I didn’t care for it.\u00a0 Then we went to where tequila is made and not only were we given an education on the process of how it’s made and how to select and drink tequila, we were given 7 or 8 shots.\u00a0 Regarding a brown tequila, aged twenty years, the tour guide said, “At home, I only share this one with three people: me, myself, and I.” It was one of the ones we got to taste, and it was amazing.\u00a0 We bought two bottles of the Me-Myself-And-I.\u00a0 Needless to say, we had a good time in Cozumel.<\/p>\n

I’m not sure I can say enough good things about the Writing Excuses Retreat.\u00a0 As stated by the hosts, one of their goals is to create and foster a writing community.\u00a0 On that front, they succeeded.\u00a0 I met some wonderful people and I hope to stay in touch with them.\u00a0 I’m looking forward to seeing them next year.<\/p>\n

Melissa and I had such a good time that we’ve already signed up to go again.\u00a0 They haven’t officially opened it for purchase, but we were able to put down a deposit.<\/p>\n

If you are a writer, I recommend you go.\u00a0 It’s a remarkable experience.\u00a0 I’m still processing the things I learned.\u00a0 I’ll probably be processing for quite a while longer.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I’ve talked about Worldcon and the Writer’s Digest conference.\u00a0 Now it’s time to talk about the event I was looking forward to more than any other this year.\u00a0 Let’s get into the Writing Excuses Cruise. Tonight, I’m going to talk about the cruise in general and a basic overview of the writing retreat and how […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1025","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-general"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/briancebuhl.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1025","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/briancebuhl.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/briancebuhl.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/briancebuhl.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/briancebuhl.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1025"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/briancebuhl.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1025\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1026,"href":"https:\/\/briancebuhl.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1025\/revisions\/1026"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/briancebuhl.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1025"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/briancebuhl.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1025"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/briancebuhl.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1025"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}