Iceland Writers Retreat – Gemma D. Alexander

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Iceland, Iceland Writers Retreat, Perlan, risk

Bridge to the Unknown

In 2014, I attended the first annual Iceland Writers Retreat. At the time, I was contemplating leaving my day job for a freelance writing career. Walking in the natural area around Perlan, I saw this bridge jutting out from the path, not appearing to connect to anything on the other side. It was so rickety-looking, I wasn’t even sure if it was meant to be walked on. It seemed like a powerful, and somewhat frightening metaphor for my present circumstances.

I did not walk on the rickety, open-ended bridge. I didn’t want to be the dumb tourist who destroyed an art piece, or the dumb tourist who fell and needed rescue from a natural area inside the city. So I stayed on the path, which soon switched back below the bridge. From the lower path, the bridge looked like this:

I did not go back to cross the bridge. But I did go home and quit my day job.

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business cards, Gemma Alexander, Geraldine Brooks, Iceland Writers Retreat, identity, self introduction

Ch-Ch-Changes – The Difference a Year Can Make

We tend to think of ourselves as a single, continuous existence. But even over the course of a single year, it’s amazing how much we can change. It doesn’t even have to be a year of upheaval. A while back, I posted a writing exercise I did for Geraldine Brooks’ workshop at Iceland Writers Retreat.

I actually took two of her workshops. The second writing exercise was to introduce yourself, to basically give your own personal elevator speech. I wrote this in April, and it’s amazing to me how much of it no longer applies to me this December. I can’t wait to see what I will write about myself in 2015. Read More

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Iceland Writers Retreat, writing groups

Make it a Double

Unlike drinking, writing is something people expect you to do alone. When I started paying attention to author bios and acknowledgment pages, I saw many authors credit their writing groups with helping them finish the book. “Whatever,” I thought, “That is totally not my style.” But then I went to the Iceland Writers Retreat. Read More

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Asgeir Trausti, Decibel Magazine, Iceland Writers Retreat, reblog, statistics

April by the Numbers

photo gratisography.com

In the past few months, I’ve been paying attention to blog statistics. Sometimes I learn something useful. I’m not sure what you readers get from these posts, but my statistics say a lot of you read them, so I’ll keep it up. Read More

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Geraldine Brooks, Iceland Writers Retreat, James Scudamore, Neil Degrasse Tyson, Rise of the Guardians, Susan Orlean

Curiouser and Curiouser

I was stopped at a red light while driving my daughter to preschool. Next to me was one of those public wastelands, a strip of land between roads that served no purpose but to host weeds and give a municipal gardener one more thing to mow twice a year. It was covered in bright green spring grass. Too coarse to be a proper lawn grass, it still seemed too lush to be a native meadow grass. I wondered, ‘Is there such a thing as a weed lawn grass?’ and then wondered that I wondered. Two weeks ago, I probably wouldn’t have even noticed the grass. I would have been too absorbed in the inner monologue dictating my schedule for the day, and how the red light might affect it. But after Iceland Writers Retreat, the grass not only caught my attention, it piqued my curiosity. I blame Susan Orlean. Read More

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