Vivi--Ziggy!

 


So this weekend, Vivienne got to learn about plot and character development! She also spent some time letting me run around! I'm Ziggy! I'm not normally so excited, but I'm feeding off her excitement from everything that happened. We got an assignment that involved five random cards to help us develop the five major milestones of our plot. (Must admit, it's a bit weird to think about my life's story as simply a novel, but you know....I am a character.)

One of the things about this retreat out by the beautiful Hood Canal is that Vivi had put together an outfit for me, including horns! She wore the horns the entire weekend, and Saturday evening, dressed as me and let me play around! It was really good to stretch my limbs a bit and mentally fly around and see things. There's a forest above the retreat center and it smells so beautifully old. We didn't take much of a walk through it, but there was also a nearby labyrinth made of those funky large white shells from the beach. I dont actually know what they're called.

All in all, we got to reconnect with friends, learn new things and put them into practice, explore, write, plot, have a conversation with Vela (do you remember her? she's a persnickety character with a mind of her own), and get surprised by the sweetest gift at the end of the retreat. Oh and we rescued one lady who'd gotten lost while taking a hike....on one of the hottest days. Although technology fought back, we were able to locate her and get her in what Vivi calls "air conditioning" (though I don't get why you need to condition air...just call it cold air!) and give her water. The retreat leader was laughing in retrospect at how this entire situation fit the "Hero's Journey" plot structure. But we were successful in finding the lady before anything bad happened!

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