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Writing Retreat 2026, days 3–5

Posted on by Patrick
Concentric star trails

Let’s see here:

Wednesday

Wednes­day was rainy and cool. I did some edit­ing on the paper print­out of There’s Noth­ing Good at the Top, and fin­ished read­ing Julian Com­stock by Robert Charles Wil­son and start­ed Fear­less Jones by Wal­ter Mosley. I also dis­cov­ered that Far­go is avail­able to me on the TV, and so I watched the first few episodes of sea­son 1.

Thursday

Thurs­day was a bet­ter day; the sun came out and the tem­per­a­ture cracked the mid-teens. I wore shorts when I walked over to Poor Michael’s book empo­ri­um, where I had a mocha and picked up some books for a friend (I have enough books of my own, thanks). Back at the house I entered my edits from the paper man­u­script into my doc­u­ment, and made a few more updates. I still need to add a few scenes and update a few dream sequences, I think; make a few things more explic­it. The first draft is you telling your­self the sto­ry[1]As Sir Ter­ry Pratch­ett put it., but by the time it’s a sec­ond draft (which is what I’m work­ing on) it should be ready for oth­ers to read it too.

The sky was still clear after the sun went down, and it’s quite dark ’round these parts, so I set up my cam­eras in the yard, one fac­ing north and one point­ing pret­ty much straight up. The north-fac­ing one got about 2½ hours worth of 5‑second expo­sures for star trails (above); the oth­er one snapped a bunch of 30-sec­ond expo­sures of the Milky Way. I made time-lapse videos from both sets of photos.

The Milky Way (and the International Space Station)
The Milky Way

Friday

That actu­al­ly bled into Fri­day; all the pho­tos were tak­en before I went to bed at about 1am, but all the pro­cess­ing hap­pened today. I’ve also read some more, and I plowed through all of sea­son 1 of Far­go too, which told a taut story.

And now I’m going to have some sup­per, and then work some more on my edit­ing. Tomor­row I have to be up ear­ly, so it’s prob­a­bly for the best that it’s cloudy and rainy—I’ll be less tempt­ed to try and get more night­time photos.

Series: Writing Retreat 2026

The entire series: Writ­ing Retreat 2026, day 2; Writ­ing Retreat 2026, days 3–5.

Foot­notes

Foot­notes
↑1 As Sir Ter­ry Pratch­ett put it.

Writing Retreat 2026, day 2

Posted on by Patrick
Panoramic view of the Milky Way at Spruces

Yes­ter­day I chopped words from a 3350-word sto­ry till it was under 2500 words. I read it over today, and it’s still got the heart of the sto­ry in it. I’ll give it anoth­er look in a few days and see if I’ve missed anything.

Today I read about a dozen chap­ters in Julian Com­stock by Robert Charles Wil­son. I’m into the final sec­tion and I’m still not sure how this is going to end.

I also con­tin­ued edit­ing the paper man­u­script of There’s Noth­ing Good at the Top. There are a num­ber of things I need to add in there, and the list is grow­ing. (It’s fine; as they say, writ­ing’s re-writing.)

After sup­per I head­ed to Wasagam­ing to snap a short time­lapse of the sunset.

I also got a panora­ma of the sun­set sky.

panoramic view of the sunset at Wasagaming

After that, I con­tin­ued on to Spruces, where the clouds stayed away from the shots I want­ed of the Milky Way.

The Milky Way at Spruces
5-image stack of the Milky Way

Back at the house, I set up for some quick star trails (and got a bonus shot of the Big Dipper).

Star trails from the front porch of the house
The Big Dipper from the front porch

And now it’s just past mid­night, and I’m going to go to bed. (That’s one thing about doing this retreat in mid-Sep­tem­ber rather than July or August; I don’t have to stay up till 1 am to get prop­er­ly dark skies.)

Update: It appears that, if I’d stayed up anoth­er hour or two, I might have caught some hori­zon-hug­ging auro­ra last night. Ah well, so it goes.

Series: Writing Retreat 2026

The entire series: Writ­ing Retreat 2026, day 2; Writ­ing Retreat 2026, days 3–5.

Writing Retreat 2026, Day 1

Posted on by Patrick
fountain pen on notepad

It’s the Mon­day after my 29th wed­ding anniver­sary and I’m in a stranger’s house for a week. It’s 9°C[1]For the Fahren­heit folks: that ain’t warm. and rainy. I’m unpacked and I’ve had a snack and I’m con­tem­plat­ing dri­ving into the park to see if the gela­to place is open on Mondays.

I don’t have my bike with me this year—still nurs­ing my heal­ing wrist[2]I broke it in ear­ly June, in case you missed it.—but I’ve got my lap­top, my cam­eras and tripods, and a print­ed first draft of a novella.

Goals

Here’s what I’d like to accom­plish this week:

  • Fin­ish the first pass of edit­ing There’s Noth­ing Good at the Top
  • Re-read Dried Flow­ers
  • See if I can trim about 1,000 words out of a 3,300–word sto­ry so I can send it in to the CBC Fic­tion contest
  • Walk a few kilo­me­tres every day
  • Get some Milky Way pho­tos (and auro­ra if the sun and the clouds cooperate)
  • Read at least a cou­ple of the books I brought along
  • Relax and enjoy myself

Foot­notes

Foot­notes
↑1 For the Fahren­heit folks: that ain’t warm.
↑2 I broke it in ear­ly June, in case you missed it.

A shadow on the moon

Posted on by Patrick
The moon, slowly being covered by Earth's shadow

I set up on the deck last night for an hour or so to get the lunar eclipse.

Full size (about 7MB)

The images in the panora­ma above were tak­en at 2‑minute inter­vals (with occa­sion­al adjust­ment to the cam­er­a’s aim). They’re all 250mm, f/5.6, and either 1/100s, ISO 100 (the cres­cents) or 1s, 200 ISO (the rud­dy disks).

Since I was already out there, and the sky was clear, I set up my 2nd cam­era, point­ing straight up, to get some star trails. (And satel­lite tracks aplen­ty, some irid­i­um flares, and maybe a very small mete­or or two.)

Star trails, as seen from my deck

This one’s made up of ~630 images, each 11mm, f/2.8, 5s. (I did­n’t check the ISO on these, but I’d guess it’s in the 100–400 range.)

A week’s vacation

Posted on by Patrick
Blurred poplar trees

First I went on a three-day guys’ trip with a cou­ple gents I’ve known for 35 years and count­ing[1]Not sure how that’s pos­si­ble and then I joined my mom, my sis­ter, my broth­er-in-law, my niece, and my dar­ling wife for the rest of the week.

Con­tin­ue read­ing “A week’s vaca­tion” →

Foot­notes

Foot­notes
↑1 Not sure how that’s possible