Highlights Workshop: Day 1

A view from the magical woods.

Today was my first official day at the Highlights Fantasy Workshop.  It was arrival day for most of the attendees of the workshop (I came early since the drive was long) so we didn't have anything scheduled until this afternoon, leaving us plenty of time for exploration and settling into our cabins.  The weather was lovely so I enjoyed a walk in the woods (which I'm sure my legs are going to regret tomorrow!)  There were lovely streams and mossy-rocks that seemed to have come right out of a fairy tale.

Our meals and meetings are in the farmhouse.  It's a cute, quaint little building with lots of comfy seats.  The chef is awesome and cooked us inside-out potpies for dinner complete with bird-shaped puff pastries.  (From now on, I'm bringing my camera to meal times!)  She also made teeny "fairy traveling cakes" for dessert.  Yum yum!

The Highlights Farmhouse.

Apart from eating and taking long walks, we had our introductory meeting where Laura Ruby and Anne Ursu passed out our critiqued manuscripts.  (We sent our entire manuscripts ahead of time for them to read and critique.)  We received editorial letters, too.  Mine was 10 pages long and full of lots of great topics to discuss at our critique sessions tomorrow.  (That may sound overwhelming, but it included compliments as well as editorial suggestions, so I'm not despairing yet!)  Now we have the rest of the night to go through our manuscripts and take in their editorial suggestions.  (Why did I write a 300-page manuscript again?)  After our critiques in the morning, we jump into our revisions for the rest of the week!

I better get reading!