An overwhelming success This week was an overwhelming success - emotionally, socially, and in the development of new skills. From the choice of venue, to the meals, to the approachability of team, to the amount of information that was imparted, everything met or exceeded my expectations.

Experience was beyond phenomenal Experience was beyond phenomenal. Anyone who is on the fence (as I was) JUST GO!!! Andrea knows her stuff and Madison was super organized. Musical and friend connections for life…

Art is Work. To Sell it is Art. I can't think of a better way to begin or give a boost to your creativity. Andrea is a great communicator. Even so, there's no magic wand that will make you write better songs, but you'll learn how to write songs better. And unless you're a genius like your mama told you, you need to understand the rules of writing songs that stand a chance of being shared.

It was more people than I was… It was more people than I was expecting. I found the amount of people a little overwhelming and it was difficult to connect until late in the course. Perhaps better 'break the ice' exercises at the beginning instead of all introducing ourselves in such a big circle which was quite daunting. Not enough breaks to just take it all in. 14 hour day with only breaks for meals felt very intense. My accommodation was a long walk away from the main venue so the round trip meant I had to take everything I needed at the start of the day and did not really get a chance to go back to my room unless I missed the communal meal experiences. I had not expected to do so much cowriting with people who were quite inexperienced . That made the experience quite difficult to be really thoughtfully creative and became more about working on one's levels of patience and tolerance. I found Andrea captivating, sensitive and very knowledgable.

Helpful on Many Levels I appreciated the practical tips Andrea provided to help me bust out of my writer's block and to help me revise/improve my songs. She gave me a lot of tools to think about and use. Andrea also built an exceptional community of songwriters with varying skills, strengths, and talents. The people were open-minded, collaborative, and super supportive. As a result, the songs created at the retreat were amazing.