Welcome to the manor

As I have mentioned before most of this trip will be spent studying in a country manor house. Yes, you read what you thought you read a country manor house. It is spectacular. My class is held in the Gold Room. THE GOLD ROOM. Now of course this room is actually very understated and almost shabby right. No, it really is the Gold Room. There are cherubs on the ceiling, that is how understated that is.

There are actually cherubs everywhere in this room and in this house in general. 

Sadly, I am not living in the manor. I am in the Carriage House. Which is beautiful from the outside but very dormish on the inside, but who cares. It is still a carriage house on the grounds of a beautiful manor. Speaking of here is a picture of the outside of my school. 

and some pictures of the inside

Crazy right!

So I have been here for two weeks now and in that time I have: started classes, made great friends, had a weird club experience, drank lots of tea, been to Scotland, ruined a pair of shoes, been very cold, and most importantly been inspired. 

If you did not know I am taking a creative writing course that is truly amazing. We workshop each others work and some really cool and different writing projects, but the best part is our guest lecturers who are each here for about a week. They have been so amazing, helpful, and inspiring. Our first guest lecture was Mr. Ken MacLeod. He is a crazy talented science fiction writer who spent a lot of time helping us come up with openings and endings of stories, the most difficult part. Here is a link to his blog: http://kenmacleod.blogspot.co.uk/ Our next visiting writer was Christopher Wakling. He is a talented fiction writer, who spent much of the time working on short stories and doing exorcises on character and place. Here is a link to his blog:http://christopherwakling.com/It was great for future lessons for teaching and for my future writing. So far I have turned in two poems, one in meter ahhh, I have the rough draft of a psychological

 thriller based on Belle Meade Mansion in Nashville, and I am now working on a comedic short story on a girl who loses her phone down a mole hole and the mole people take it. 

I have also visited another beautiful manor, Belton House http://www.nationaltrust.org.uk/belton-house/, and went a great below stairs tour of it. Here are some pictures of it:

Next up: Edinburgh!