A wonderful weekend away with a big bunch of author friends. A truly impressive group that had me cackling constantly and my brain firing on all cylinders.

It was wall-to-wall chats, literally from the moment I left home until I got back three days later. It was all go from the second I ventured downstairs in the morning until I returned to bed late each night. With such intense and extended periods of peopling, I’d normally be looking for moments to duck away and take a breath, but I was so energised I couldn’t get enough.

We had loosely structured workshop / information-sharing sessions which covered diversifying income, Kickstarter, genre-specific deep dives, goal setting, marketing, and juggling without burnout. Everyone was so generous in sharing their experience and insights that I came away with pages and pages of notes.

Except for the sessions we held in the spa pools. I decided the risk of dropping my notepad or laptop in the water was too high so I swapped out jotting notes for sipping wine.

Chats continued over coffees and brunches, short jaunts into town and lakeside walks with ice cream, while soaking in the hot spa pools and doing cold plunges in the icy waters, over wine and cheese, pizza, cocktails, and late-night cups of tea.

Bonus points for living my Crash Bandicoot dreams by traversing a wonky, rickety pier covered in slippery moss and missing planks without falling in the lake.

My co-drivers kept me amused on the road, so big thanks to them. And thank you to our organiser extraordinaire, to those who led sessions, and to everyone who made the weekend pure magic.