Writer's Retreat (11/21-11/25)

Hello everyone! This past week was the writer's retreat for the screenwriting class. We actually stayed at a resort-type place, which is for blind children or something, in Colin's hometown. The facility was very nice. There were 9 bedrooms, each with two bunk beds and showers, a room with beanbag chairs, a meeting room, dining room and kitchen, as well as a sauna and a hot tub.

We left Griffith around 1 PM by bus. The retreat was 2 hours out of Dublin. The neighborhood was rural-suburban with lots of farms. Colin hired a cook to make us meals. It was so nice to have home-cooked food and it was always delicious. The first night we had Mexican and we made our own tacos. Each night Colin would screen us a movie in the meeting room. The first night we watched the rest of Cherrybomb (starring Rupert Grint), which Colin's friends Glenn and Lisa directed. Later we wanted to watch another movie so Colin played the Muppet Movie for us! I had forgotten how awesome the Muppets were.

Monday morning I went on a walk with Joe and Nora around the neighborhood. It was nice sunny weather. The backyard of the building leads to a lake, and that's where we went first before going off.

The neighborhood was really nice and quiet. I felt more at peace there than I did in Dublin. I really wished we had did the retreat more than once this semester. The three of us went on a really long walk just to find sheep. We'd see them in the distance, but none really close by. We did see a lot of cows though, and a pretty friendly horse.

This horse came over to say hello.

Unfortunately my camera battery died so I couldn't take pictures for the rest of the retreat. Nor could I get photos of the cute sheep we did find at the end of our walk.

Tuesday I got a lot of work done. I wrote 10 pages for my screenplay. Right now I still have the draft to finish, plus now I have lots of revisions to do. Colin's writer/director friends gave us tutorials on our screenplays after reading sample pages and treatments. I had my tutorial with Colin's friend and collaborator Vincent O'Connell. We took a walk while talking about my script. Vincent had such great insight about my story and his suggestions were so helpful. It was probably the most helpful tutorial I had.

Each night Colin would screen us a film. Monday night we watched Being There, which was Peter Sellers' last film, Tuesday we watched a film Vincent wrote called I.D., and Wednesday we watched Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid. The last night our class split into 3 teams and we solved movie quizzes. I was on a team with Mike, Joe, and Anthony and we won. Our prizes were 4 movie books. I took a book about screenwriting.

None of us wanted to leave. The beds were more comfortable, the showers were better, and the cooked food was delicious. Plus the sauna was nice even though I'm not really a fan, and the hot tub was amazing. The day we left it was Thanksgiving back in the States. Susanne took us all out for Thanksgiving dinner at restaurant. They gave us turkey, ham, potatoes, vegetables, cranberry sauce, and dessert.  I wasn't as hungry as I thought when dinner came around, but it was very nice.

There's about 3 weeks left in the semester! Including my screenplay, I have 3 other assignments to get done. It's going to be both stressful and exciting!