Hello everybody! I'm back at blogging again. I had a very busy, but exciting weekend. I just got back from Word Fest, an international Writing festival held in Banff. Many authors from all over come to Banff to share their work and inspire others who are interested in writing. Every year, he writing class from D.T.S.S plans to go on a overnight field trip to go and participate in the events. I'm in writing this year, so I got to go too. As you probably know, I am quite interested in writing, so I was very excited for the trip. It's great that the writing class gets to go because all of us in there love to write and this event helped us to better our writing skills in the future. We got to talk to writers that have published books, and listen to how much work and dedication they have put into their writing. We learned a lot from all of the authors that talked to us. It was a very inspiring weekend.
We left Friday after school and returned home on Sunday. My mom accompanied me on the trip so I could have some extra help with personal care and things like that. The class would leave the school on Friday afternoon and were driven to Banff by bus. Mom and I, however, drove in our van so I could bring my chair. It was awesome having my chair there. There was a lot of walking to get to our the different venues, so I was very happy that I had it with me so I could be with everybody. We went over some pretty rough terrain and sometimes I had to find different paths that were accessible. It took a bit of extra planning but we figured out our route eventually. Everyone was very inclusive. They always would chose a way that I could go on and would take the same route as me. They were great. I'm lucky to have so many good friends!
The first night we were there, we got to go to a night club to see something called "Lit up" . I think all of us felt pretty grown up sitting in the night club with all the adults. We got to see author and poets perform and read there work. This was probably my favorite event. I loved hearing every stories. Some were really funny. There was one guy there who made up different sounds and his own language. I didn't know what to think of that. He was very good at it though. It was a fun night. It was a great way to start the weeken
The first full day of Wordfest was full of Workshops and seminars. We got to visit a real author, named Ivan Coyote and do some writing with her. She helped us work on writing about our senses and all the important things that go into a story. My mom and I sat together and got to read what each other wrote. My mom loves to write to, so she had lots of fun. Ivan was great. She really worked hard on helping us develop a story and she was funny too. We only had one seminars like that. The rest were just presentations. Everyone wanted to do more of them but we were on a busy schedule.
We got to go to another seminar called "How a Writer Should Be" There was a panel of writers that all gave us advice on how to become better writers. I thought all of them sounded extremely passionate about what they do. They all kept talking about how dedicated you have to be if you want to write books. That really got me thinking about me choosing writing as a career. It may not be the one I end up doing, but I think writing will always be a part of my life for years to come, so thearing all these tips on how to making your writing better was very helpful for me.
Later, for part two of the seminar, we got to meet a bunch of authors and listen to them read a section from their book. I felt pretty special, getting to sit there and listen to all to real authors read from books they wrote. Each author seemed to have their own style of writing, which was neat see. When they read passages, they seemed to know exactly who their characters were, and became them very well. It was awesome to get to listen to what they wrote. I think we all were very privileged to get to do that
To end our exciting weekend, one last performance was put on in a big theatre.
All the authors that were at Wordfest came on stage to read for the grand finale. It was like a poetry
Cabernet, so most of the stuff people read was poetry, but their were some short stories as well. They were all very good with words. You could tell they loved to write. Some of the stuff they said went over our heads. Neither my mom or I could quite understand it. I guess some of those authors were just too smart for us I still loved the performances though. It was a perfect grand finale to Wordfest .
The whole weekend was awesome. Everybody got to have quite a bit of free time to go shopping and out for dinner. Mom and I got to spend lots of time together, exploring Banff. Bannf is a cute little town, with lots of shops. I loved roaming around town. We got to have some great food We had big breakfasts every morning. It was the perfect weekend getaway. I definitely got inspired by the different authors we met. They opened my eyes a lot to how much work goes into writing a novel. I think if I were to be a writer, I'd really have to push myself, especially with editing my work. I'm trying to work on editing quite a bit now. It's a tricky thing to do, and I'm not the best at it, but I'm getting better. Who knows? If I work hard enough at I might get to present my work in Wordfest one day. We'll just have to wait and see!
Thank you to my teacher, Ms. Little for arranging this trip. I think everybody that went was inspired and got something out of it. I hope to go next year, as i will be in my Super grad year and I will for sure take writing again. I think all the authors showed each and every one of us that we can do anything if we just believe in ourselves and work hard at trying to achieve our goals. If you put your mind to it, any dream can come true. You just have to take things one step at a time and enjoy the adventure.
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