Swanston

Earlier this week I spent three days doing a book sprint with a some of my work colleagues. A book sprint is basically a short facilitated writing retreat that aims to produce a book from scratch in five intensive days. However we only had half that time and to add to the challenge one of our team was called away on jury service :} As it was, three of us managed to write a 20,000 word book in two and a half days, which is not bad going. It was an interesting experience, and the technique seemed to work well for collaborative technical publications, though I am curious as to whether it would be suitable for creative writing.

We stayed in some converted farm steadings at Swanston on the outskirts of Edinburgh, close by Swanston Village where Robert Louis Stevenson spent some of his youth. Years later on Samoa, shortly before his death, Stevenson wrote of his longing to see the hills around Swanston one last time.

The tropics vanish and meseems that I, from Halkerside, from topmost Allermuir or steep Caerketton, dreaming, gaze again.

It's a pretty spot right enough...